Author: Julianne

What a load of crap…

Literally.

I have recently acquired a fairly large quantity of horse manure, via the Head Gardener (aka Dad) whose village, apparently, has a Dung Day, when local farmers will pitch up with bags of fertilizer which you can buy at a very reasonable price. Et voila – horse manure for my raised beds!

It’s a little bit of last-minute enrichment for the soil here, which I think could do with some help. Last year’s crops were mostly poor and while the weather probably had some part to play, I think the beds have probably been dormant for a while prior to us moving in and the soil may be lacking in nutrients. So I’m hopeful that chucking in a sizeable amount of poo – both horse and chicken – will help them on their way to becoming fertile containers of lush vegetables, fruit and flowers.

As well as digging some of the manure into a currently vacant bed, I also planted my potatoes – ten earlies (Duke of York) have gone into the top bed. These beds are really big (I didn’t make them, I’m just the lucky soul who’s managed to inherit them from the previous owners!) so there’s still a bit of room in it for something else – I think I’ll probably also add some peas or sweet peas in the space that’s left.

So – currently in the beds at the moment:

Bed 1 – potatoes (10 Duke of York)

Bed 2 – empty (+ cloche to warm soil)

Bed 3 – empty (+ cloche to warm soil)

Bed 4 – 2 x raspberry canes planted last year (Autumn Bliss)

Bed 5 – 2 x rhubarb (inherited and moved from a different part of the garden); 4 x young strawberry plants grown from the runners of a large old plant; 6 x raspberry canes (Tulameen and Glen Something) and the re-sprouting Tayberry plant which I thought I had previously removed

Bed 6 – empty (+ generous amount of horse dung)

The Easter holidays are imminent – I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for some good weather to warm the soil so I can start sowing a few more seeds and filling all those empty spaces.

The rhubarb is coming along – it’s already looking a bit healthier since its move to the bed.

Project Hen is moving forward…!

We have a coop! An Eglu Go to be precise, and I am so excited.

My head is full of hens at the moment, as I’m working out where to put them, when to feed them, how to make this work for our family life. My girls are also excited about the prospect of some feathered friends and even my husband, who was somewhat dubious to begin with, seems to be getting on board and is keen to come and choose our chickens.

Hopefully we’ll bring some home next week during the Easter holidays, but before then we’ve got to figure out how to make the coop and run fit into the area I have marked out for it. More pics and details to follow after the weekend I think, when I hope to have the Eglu in place and ready to accept its new inhabitants!

Scarifying!

Scarifying has been the main aim of today. Recently I was enjoying a cup of coffee in the garden and surveying the back lawn, when I realised that it was looking decidedly mossy – in fact it was starting to take over. The blades of grass were poking up sporadically between large patches of spongy moss, and it was starting to look like 70/30 in favour of the moss – maybe more in places!

So a plan of action was formed. The Head Gardener (aka My Dad) appeared today with an electric scarifier and we set to work trying to hoik up a large amount of moss and thatch and non-grass from the grass. He did the scarifying, I did the raking and scooping. We filled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow until his trailer was full of a giant pile of moss, ready for tipping at the local recycling centre. It seemed like a big job but actually took less than an hour – and was SO satisfying. Removing all the mossy stuff has left the grass looking a bit scruffy and muddy in places but I’m assured by the aforementioned Head Gardener that it should come back looking much better, although we may need to repeat the procedure annually, if not twice a year.

One of many, many wheelbarrows full of moss

He’s very good at reminding me that gardeners must play the long game. We can’t always get results straight away – in fact, we hardly ever do! It takes time for seeds to germinate, for buds to form and flowers to bloom. If we prune a shrub, it will take time for it to re-grow into a more pleasing shape; some trees will take years and years to grow – we have a Monkey Puzzle (Araucaria araucana) in the front garden which will take so long to reach a significant height that we will probably be long gone by the time it does so! And he likes to remind me, Instant-Gratification Girl, that I must be patient when it comes to my garden. I hope to enjoy it for many years, so a quick transformation is not necessary and virtually impossible, so I must take my time, plan carefully and be persistent with things like the grass and the Secret Garden/Allotment. Grass must be looked after, soil must be enriched and worked – the results will show themselves in time, and will be worth the effort.

In Bargain Shopping News, I was at Lidl today and picked up some more cut-price plants: two geraniums (99p each), four primroses (£1.89 each, 12 box (£1.99 for six) and a jasmine (£4.69).

The primroses are gorgeous – I chose two cream/white plants and two in pinky-purple shades. I will probably put these in pots but to be honest I’ve fallen so suddenly and completely for these sturdy little flowers with their vivid colours that it will be difficult to resist going back for more for the flower beds…

Primula

Not a gardening post

This weekend was unfortunately spent not gardening, so this is a ‘not gardening’ blog post. I was Not Gardening for various reasons:

The weather was poor, which was actually a good thing because…
I had to paint my study, and keep getting distracted by the good weather and the garden when really I need to Get On With It. My study is my little refuge – for reading, writing, blogging and occasional staring at the garden while planning the next job…!
It was quite a busy weekend with a grown-up party, a kids party and a visit to my parents to take into account, as well as a hairdresser’s appointment to keep.

However, even when I’m Not Gardening, I’ve found it’s difficult to shake the gardening habit. When I was in town for the hairdresser appointment I popped into a few shops and discovered that my eye is now drawn to garden-themed clothing. The evidence…

I love roses so much apparently I want to wear them

I’ve also been inspired by a couple of books which will hopefully help with my garden plans – I’ve been reading Chicken Coops for the Soul, which I stumbled upon at the library when I was looking for something completely different. It’s a useful insight into the realities of chicken-keeping and is helping me to get an idea what it might actually be like, if/when I take the plunge. So far, it’s not putting me off!

I have also recently received this book which I ordered from a second-hand online shop…

…and I can’t wait to get stuck in. Although I haven’t read it yet, it’s one of the inspirations for this blog – Monty kept a diary, written and photographic, of everything they did when they moved to Ivington and this book is the result. Now. I KNOW I am nowhere on the scale of the mighty Mr Don, but we do plan to be in this house for a long time, so I’d like to think that a record of the development of the garden would be a great thing to look back on in years to come. And if at that point I’m a big famous gardening expert *ahem* , a publishing deal will certainly be very welcome…so I’m getting started early!

Look at this face, how could you not trust the advice he gives…

Don’t even get me started on his new puppy.

So, as I said, it’s been a weekend of No Gardening. Followed by today – the Springiest of Spring days and, Sods Law, I’ve had to go to work, in a windowless office, with zero plants or soil or anything. It is genuinely frustrating, to have to spend such a beautiful day indoors, but when I start to get worked up about it I remind myself that I am very lucky to have a good, flexible, part-time job, and that my three days of work allow me to have two days of non-work and the means to own the house and garden that we do. So the next time I get annoyed about it, I will take a breath, count my blessings and walk through the office door, dressed in one of my lovely new garden-themed shirts…

Wee pea shoots

Great excitement – the first shoots are emerging from my peas!

I reckon it really doesn’t matter if it’s your first time or your hundredth time planting seeds and watching them grow – those first little nubs of green pushing their way through the soil always give you a little rush of excitement; a sense of satisfaction that you are officially Growing Something. Nature and you are working together, you are a TEAM!

Nature and I are also working on some aubergines, peppers, sweet peas, lobelia – and as of today, some cosmos, zinnia and marigolds.

I may be running out of room in the greenhouse-utility room already…

10 minutes digging

Sometimes spending just 10 minutes in the garden can be just as satisfying as a whole day.

This afternoon I grabbed the opportunity to do some digging – I’m anxious to prepare the raised beds for the new growing season and had a few spare minutes, so grabbed a spade and fork and got to work in the late afternoon sun.

10 minutes was enough to dig over one raised bed, incorporating a trug-ful of homemade compost. It’s the bed I’m using for fruit and rhubarb. There are two crowns already pushing up a number of vivid pink stalks , four small strawberry plants I grew from the runners of a very old one which has since been composted, plus the resurrected shoots of a tayberry which I (mistakenly) pulled out last year. There are now six raspberry canes soaking in a bucket overnight, ready to join this bed as soon as I get the chance to plant them tomorrow.

Look how good this soil looks – ready to grow lots of great stuff!

strawberry plant in the foreground – rhubarb at the back!

And here’s a reminder of just what my raised beds look like at the beginning of the year…

A bit bare at the moment, but I have big plans for this area – lots of fruit, veg and flowers in the short-term and hopefully a potting shed, maybe a greenhouse in the future. I call it the Secret Garden, because it’s hidden behind a door to the side of the main garden, and there’s so much potential in it, both for growing things and for creating a very special private allotment. Watch this space.

A whole day in the garden

A WHOLE DAY. This almost never happens, thanks to a combination of family responsibilities, weather, a job and various other demands which crop up on a daily or weekly basis. But I have a very rare week off work, promised since last year, and it’s allowed me the luxury of time to write, garden, walk and go to yoga classes whenever I please. So yesterday, I spent all my time outside and I loved it. Following the walk I blogged about in my last post, I wrapped up (it’s still a bit chilly!) and went straight outside, armed with a gardening to-do list.

Focusing on the main garden, I dug, planted, moved shrubs, mulched and snipped myself into a state of bliss. There were two areas I was aiming to clear – the side patio bed and a section of the back border which is where I want the chicken coop (yep, I’m still planning this!) and run to go.

The side bed has been a bit of a conundrum since we moved in. It’s got three thriving shrubs in it already – a bamboo, a camellia and a lovely variegated myrtle bush. At one end I’ve planted some herbs as it’s close to the back door, and easy access from the kitchen when I need some for cooking. But the middle section is quite shallow and tough to dig, with lots of old roots from a huge ivy, most of which has now been cleared to make way for a gas pipe to be fixed along the wall (don’t ask, it’s a long and boring story…). Towards the end of last summer I planted some perennials which I’d bought – geums, lavender and a couple of foxgloves – but this was largely because I couldn’t really think of anything else to do with the bed. They’ve done very little since then of course, so I’ve now lifted them; the lavenders are going into the opposite end of the garden, the corner patio where we have a table and chairs, and where I’m growing a series of climbers to try and hide some of the grey breeze block wall behind. The lavenders should do a good job of brightening up the areas below the clematis, honeysuckle and roses which are already there.

The geums have now gone in below a twisted hazel which is also next to the back door, again a little bit of interest for the lower level of this small, rocky bed.

The plan now for the side patio is to put down a membrane, some decorative stones and to plant up lots of pots and place around the existing shrubs. That way, I won’t have to dig into the tough soil, I can plant a variety of containers and can chop and change the pots whenever I like. So, I’ve managed to clear the space ready for this, and now it looks like this…

I’ve also ordered a rambler from Peter Beales roses, which I’ll grow at the back and along the wall to try and hide some of the grey-ness. It’s a pale pink flower, and should complement the vivid green and red-pink of the camellia, which flowered beautifully last year.

I had to move a couple of things out of the back border too, so that I could mark out the approximate space I’ll need for the coop/run I’m hoping for. I moved a young cherry into the front garden, and removed a hydrangea completely. I love hydrangea – I don’t mind that they’re a bit old-fashioned, I just love their huge showy flowers – but this one was quite old and woody, plus I’d taken cuttings from it in the autumn so it will live on. There’s a rhodedendron which might also need moved out of the way but it’s just about to flower so I’ve left it for now.

This is how the space looks now…

In the foreground you might also be able to make out a small magnolia which was also planted yesterday – another bargain from Lidl!

So I’m quite pleased with the preparations I’ve made in these two key areas of the garden. Looking out and seeing the clear spaces gives me a sense of anticipation – I’m ready for the next stage!

And now for a close-up! A selection of photos caputuring what’s going on in the garden just now…

The rhodedendron which is getting ready to flower

Salix – a new pussy willow for the front border

The witch hazel is still going strong

Yellow

I have spent ALL DAY outside today, and it’s been wonderful. Yellow has been a theme running through…

It was bright and only a wee bit cold so I headed out straight after the school run on my new favourite walking route, which goes through fields, past some interesting houses and into the woods, with some cracking views both to the north and south. The gorse is already showing a generous sprinkling of yellow flowers in places here.

There was a plethora of bird life on offer too – blue tits, great tits, some more flirty chaffinches and a few flocks of geese crossing overhead, presumably ready to leave their winter holidays in the UK behind and head back to their breeding grounds for the spring. However ‘tweet of the day’ was the yellowhammer. I didn’t actually clap eyes on one, but a number of them made their presence felt as I made my way along a path through Christmas tree fields – they were telling me over and over about a ‘little bit of bread and no cheese’ – their distinctive song which, for me, is the sound of country fields and hedgerows, the bird’s typical habitat.

This was not the first yellow bird I’ve noticed today, as the siskins on my bird feeder caught my eye this morning. These bold little visitors have been coming to the garden for several weeks now. The first time I saw one, I thought it was a yellowhammer, but consequently realised it was a smaller, but similar, siskin. They’re not often seen in gardens, but are driven into them when the weather is wet and the cones which they usually feed from are closed up.

They started off sharing the nyger seed with the goldfinches and now seem to have taken over this particular feeder, with four of them squabbling over the feeder at breakfast time this morning. They’re not shy either – quite often they stay on the feeder when I approach it, only wheeling off at the last minute when I get a little too close for comfort. With the cold, wet winter finally losing its grip on us, I wonder how much longer I’ll see these little flashes of yellow sparking in the back corner of the garden.

Siskin and Goldfinch share the nyger seeds

Mild March?

It’s March!

And when I walked out of the door this morning it was much milder than I expected – about 6 or 7 degrees (which for my corner of the earth IS mild at this time of year!), prompting me to break out my New Spring Coat, which is lighter and brighter and it made me happy to wear it for the first time. And then I got this…

…so apparently winter is not done with us quite yet!

On the topic of frosty/mild mornings, a note about hellebores. If you walk out on a frosty morning and find your hellebores looking rather floppy – don’t panic. On very cold days, the stalks will bend low, flowers touching the ground, and they’ll look a bit sad.

sad hellebores 😦

happy hellebores 🙂

But when the temperatures rise again, they’ll perk back up and resume the usual position. When I first witnessed this, I was a bit alarmed and worried I’d somehow damaged them, even though apart from removing old black-spotted leaves I had pretty much left them to their own devices since last year. Thankfully this is normal hellebore behaviour and, being very hardy plants, they should continue to grow quite happily through the rest of the frosts, right through to sunny spring.

So although I might suffer with tomorrow’s predicted severe temperature dip (the New Spring Coat will go back into the wardrobe for now), at least I know my hellebores will not!

Rooks & Reds

This morning when I walked up to the woods there was a gang waiting close to the entrance – about half a dozen, they were all in black, shouting loudly, calling to each other, generally messing about and putting others off coming nearby.

Fortunately they were also about 50 feet above me – rooks really do seem like the hoodlums of the bird world. Actually, this is probably deeply unfair to the rook (and to hoodlums). They are very sociable birds and are almost always seen in flocks, particularly noticeable at dawn or dusk during the winter, when they will gather together to communicate the best feeding sites or to find their spot to roost for the night. Each morning during the darker months, I am dimly aware of the insistent cawing of hundreds of birds above our house, and will look out of the window to see them swooping and flying, crossing the field from the woods nearby, to gather wing-to-wing on the pylon and wires a short distance away. There’s a perfect view of this from the dining room window, so breakfasts in winter are often spent marvelling at how noisy these birds are, and wondering how many can squeeze onto an wire, until the whole structure takes on the look of a magnet which has been dipped into iron filings. A few minutes pass and they are off – they’ve discussed, loudly, the best place to locate the day’s food and it’s time to go off and find it. They will gather again at dusk for some more swooping and chattering, but by then I will probably be busy in the kitchen or on my way home from work and it will happen unnoticed by me. The dawn rooks are the ones I see most often and I like them. They are a reliable, daily reminder of nature during the darkest months, when nature is sometimes a little harder to find.

Dawn rooks

My view of rooks, crows and other similar birds was transformed recently when I read the book ‘Corvus’ by Esther Woolfson. The writer lives in Aberdeen and has inadvertently become the owner/mother/foster carer? (it’s hard to know what to call her!) to a series of wild birds, including a rook, a magpie and several doves. Her tales of acquiring and looking after these birds is really absorbing; having them in her home gives her the opportunity to observe the most instinctive and distinctive of their behaviours and she details their habits, history and physiology with fascination and love. Read it, and you will never look at crows by the side of the road the same way again.

Once I had run the gauntlet of the local gang, this morning’s walk in the woods was a pleasant one, with plenty of birdsong although no woodpeckers, and I indulged once again in my new favourite activity – squirrel spotting. There’s a quiet little corner of the woods where I can stand quietly and wait for a little scuffle in the canopy, or my eyes will be drawn to a twitching branch. Today I wasn’t disappointed – a small red appeared after a minute or two, and I watched him scamper through the treetops for several minutes. The rooks were still hanging about overhead but he wasn’t bothered – unfazed by the gang of feathered teens, he zipped down a tree trunk and into the undergrowth, where I lost him for now.

A walk in the woods

I hadn’t even stepped into the woods when I heard the noise which literally stopped me in my tracks and made me grin broadly. The sharp rapping sound of the Great Spotted Woodpecker rang out – a warm, hollow drumming; I stepped forward and there was a distinctive bouncy flutter through the trees; then it came again, further away, the note a slightly higher pitch than before but unmistakeably the sound of a sturdy Scots pine resonating under the drilling of that large pointed beak.

The sound makes me grin like a loon every time I hear it, partly because I feel so lucky to walk just a short distance from my home and hear such a singular sound of nature, of a bird which is fairly common but not always easy to spot. But I was also grinning because the sound of a woodpecker drumming on a tree, like some teenage rocker practising licks and fills, means Spring is most definitely en route. The woodpecker is staking out its territory, and advertising its presence to potential mates, getting ready for the nesting and breeding season which is peeking its head around the corner.

Yes, the signs are all around now, though it’s so early in the season that you still have to go looking for them. The trees are still quite bare, of course, but the stark branches reveal evidence of last year’s nests, a reminder that the time is coming for the materials to reused and recycled for new homes, soon to be built when the leaves return to provide essential cover from predators and the elements. The leaf buds are small, but they’re there.

Near the ground, the snowdrops are now making themselves more obvious – popping up in clumps under trees and at the roadside; and the green shoots of the occasional daffodil are working their way out of the soil. These are the typical signs of spring – but now look up and notice what the birds are doing. Further into the woods some chaffinches are chasing each other so fast they’re almost blurry – seemingly taking advantage of a sunny, bright morning to indulge in a rather flirtatious game. I walk a bit further in search of one of my favourites – a jay, which is squawking crossly from the top of a nearby tree, but as usual he is one step ahead of me and off to take refuge near a hedge, giving me only the briefest flash of his distinctive white rump, which is enough to satisfy me for now. A pair of woodpigeons somewhere nearby are cooing contentedly and as I stand for a few minutes, watching three (or was it four?!) red squirrels scamper through the trees, there’s a Great Tit nearby loudly and persistently calling “teacher-teacher-teacher” as if to get the attention of some invisible educator in what was turning out to be a rather busy woodland classroom.

Long-tailed tits

The long-tailed tits are back! These gorgeous little birds first appeared on my garden feeders last year around the same time. They came back periodically for a couple of weeks and then left again – it looks like they’ll be doing the same this year. No doubt the very cold weather we have just now is driving them back to my garden looking for some high-energy snacks to warm up their tiny bodies.

They come in a small flock, at least three of them, sometimes five or six, clamouring for a space on the nut feeder, those long tail feathers poking out in all directions as they manoeuvre for the best spot. I love their round little bodies and pinky feathers, their punky head stripes, and of course the long tails – slightly longer than the rest of their body in fact – which make them rather characterful and give the impression of a much bigger bird than they really are. These pinky, punky little friends can come and visit anytime.

Chitting!

We have potatoes!

Well, the beginnings of potatoes anyway – my lovely dad picked me up some seed potatoes when he was buying his own, so now I have 10 Duke of Yorks chatting in my utility room.

Why the utility room, you ask? Well it’s a conservatory-style room leading out to the back garden and in lieu of a real greenhouse, which I don’t yet have, it’s got the right conditions (cool, sunny, warmth in spring/summer) and a bit of space for sowing and planting. It’s typically the coldest room of the house, being unheated and with a plastic roof, but I love this little room as it holds the potential of vegetables and flowers and it makes me happy to stand inside it and look out at the garden.

You might also notice some small plants in the propagation behind the spuds in the photo – these are hydrangea cuttings I took in the autumn and are hanging in there nicely so far.

To chook, or not to chook…?

I have hens on the brain at the moment.

I am very seriously considering some for the back garden!

This has been an idea at the back of my mind since we moved into the house, as the garden is such a good size, there’s plenty of room for a small coop and three or four chickens. And although I’ve been resisting the thought (just a fad! too dirty! you’ll get fed up!) I keep coming back to it again and again, lurking on chicken keeping forums, searching Gumtree for second-hand coops… I can’t seem to shake the idea and am becoming more and more sure that it’s something I’d like to try and think I’d enjoy.

I’m still weighing up the pros and cons – with any new venture I really do like to wrap my brain around it and try to imagine what doing that thing will be like, how it will affect my daily life, routines, the rest of the family etc. Here’s the list:

Pros:

Eggs! Lots of them, I hope! I’d give any excess to family and friends – or maybe have an honesty box at the front of the house.
Company in the garden – I’d like to let them free-range sometimes, and like the thought of them pecking about (and hopefully eating all the slugs!) while I’m pottering about.
Pets – we don’t have any (apart from 5 guppies!) and I like the idea of caring for an animal and that it would (hopefully) enhance our family life and engage the kids with other living creatures. The girls seem keen – they say they’d help out and I’d like to think they’d enjoy feeding the birds, handling them etc, even if they would almost certainly be unwilling to clean up bird poo!
The aforementioned poo is good fertiliser – goes on the compost heap and enriches the garden at a later date. So, although poo is really a ‘con’, it’s also a ‘pro’.

Cons:

The free-ranging might mean damage to the garden – and would definitely mean poo on the grass, which would need to be removed before the girls would play outside. (This could possibly be limited by fencing off a free-range area)
The poo (see above!)
Rats – I fear the idea of encouraging these into the garden, however I’m aware there are ways to prevent them and obviously there are ways to get rid of them.
Time commitment – this seems fairly minimal, compared to a dog for example, but I would need to spend time feeding and cleaning them, and perhaps be up and about to let them out fairly early in the mornings, especially in the summer months. My ‘spare’ time is already precious – do I want to give up a little more of it? Am I prepared to tweak my daily routine to care properly for these birds?

As you can see, I’m putting a lot of thought into it – too much, perhaps! But I need to be sure before I take the plunge. At the moment I’m keen to proceed, and keep waiting to find out something which would put me off, but it hasn’t happened yet. So, I’m back on Gumtree looking out for the elusive bargain starter chicken coop…I’ll keep you posted!

Snowdrops!

Just a small selection above of the hundreds and hundreds of snowdrops currently on show at Cambo Country House and Estate, near St Andrews.

Cambo hosts a National Collection of over 350 varieties of snowdrops and is one of the only places I can think of where you can visit a country house, woodland, gardens and the seaside almost simultaneously! Its proximity to the coast means a ramble through its gorgeous wood, taking in huge carpets of snowdrops and aconites, gradually leads you out to the coastline. My children (and husband, and father-in-law!) took great delight in mucking about in various rockpools while I was content to try and snap some of the flowers. I was glad of my Nikon 5100 which has an articulated viewfinder – I was able to get the camera down nice and low for some shots close to the ground. They were a bit hit and miss but I think I managed to get a few decent photographs.

It was also a really bright and sunny day and the afternoon light coming through the woods was perfect. I really loved this visit to Cambo – it was so relaxing and inspiring to see the huge numbers of flowers and plants on show, and gave me a chance to appreciate the first flower of spring – the snowdrop – in all its hundreds of forms, as we have absolutely none in our garden at Alvare!

Julianne Robertson

writer | communications consultant | garden media specialist