Garden design

Bittersweet peas

I’m having a love/hate relationship with sweet peas.

Actually that’s not strictly true – I love them really, but I hate the way they make me sneeze. I’m growing lots of different varieties this year and although it’s now September and Autumn is definitely peeking its head round the corner, they’re still going strong in my garden. So I’m bringing in bunches of them every few days – but the pollen is definitely exacerbating my allergies and every morning when I wake up I explode a number of times and end up looking like I’ve been crying for a week. But that scent though…

I nabbed some photos of the main offenders this morning to ‘review’ the varieties I’ve been growing this year. Way back in March I treated myself to a window propagator from Marshalls like this one, which came with a selection of new varieties of sweet pea seeds. I grew a few of each in two batches, one of which was quite late and I guess that’s why I’m still picking them mid-September.

The prize for the most prolific goes to…Little Red Riding Hood:

This one has been covered in flowers for a number of weeks and is really bright and cheery. There are so many that I’ve never yet managed to take off every flower with each picking – I’d run out of vases! The stems are on the short side but if you don’t mind that, this flower just gives and gives the whole season.

The prize for the prettiest colour goes to…Erewhon:

This flower is such a delicate blue-purple with just a hint of pink. It’s really gorgeous and very subtle. Can you spot the aphid in the photo above by the way??

Which brings me to – the prize for the most covered in aphids goes to…Cream Eggs:

These are also a really pretty colour, with delicate purple veining inside and around the edges, and they smell beautiful. However, I’ve been chasing aphids off the buds and flowers for several weeks – they hide inside the folds of the flower until you bring them inside and then invade your house too – grrr.

The prize for the most dramatic flower goes to…Berry Kiss:

This has produced lovely deep pink and purple flowers, although these tend to fade quicker and can look a bit tatty after rain.

And the prize for the purest, ruffliest sweet pea goes to…Misty Mountains:

This mix also has dark and paler purple flowers in it, but I’ve been most struck by the white ones, which look like they’ve fallen straight off an Elizabethan gentleman’s shirt sleeves. Lovely.

However my favourite sweet pea for this season is a bit of a wild card – it’s a dwarf variety which I planted into a blue pot and set by the front door. Although it didn’t last as long as the rest, the colour was magical – it’s Northern Lights:

What a beauty. The plant has finished flowering but I’ve kept it aside in the hope of keeping some of the seed to sow more next year.

So there you have it, my sweet pea selection. I’m off to take another antihistamine and enjoy more of one of my favourite flowers in the garden…

An epiphany…

Looking around the mix of various shrubs, trees, annuals and perennials in the front garden I often become frustrated by its lack of consistency and theme. Many of the mature plants were there when we moved in and I have enjoyed acquiring many more shrubs and perennials over the past couple of years and filling the gaps, but I’m not sure the gaps are being filled very effectively.

More planning is needed, and a better design. This is still in the early stages, and I have ideas for widening the borders, removing some shrubs and transplanting others. But I’ve also had an epiphany – as I view what’s already there in the borders I realise that cottage garden planting is dominant. There are lots of roses already, along with established Philadelphus and I’ve added hollyhocks, geums, echinacea, lavender, alliums, dahlia and quite a number of other herbaceous perennials which could definitely or loosely be termed ‘cottage garden plants’.

So – I’m excited! I have a theme. I have a shortlist. I have parameters for this area and this will help curb my enthusiasm for buying every plant I fall in love with (most of them) and allow me to be more selective, choosing varieties and colours which will fit in with the existing planting and blend into the blousy, loose and colourful mix that’s already there. I will add some structure, and I’m not afraid to break the rules a bit, but I have a vision now for what the front garden could be, and I’m really looking forward to creating it.

Dahlia ‘Honka Fragile’

French Lavender

Echinacea purpurea

Planning…

It’s time to get planning. For the past few weeks and months, a lot of ideas, plans and wish lists have been floating about in my head or, when possible, noted on my phone (Notes, Reminders and Evernote are the gardener’s friends for recording these on-the-go). I’ve also sorted through the seeds I have left from last year as well as ordering a few to sow this year. Now the moment has come to commit these to paper and decide when to plant it all and where to put it all.

I’ve made use of this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch year planner and made myself a visual guide – each packet’s been placed on the month which is the earliest they can be planted. If I follow the plan exactly, the next couple of months are going to be busy! However, I suspect the timings will be very much dependent on climate and opportunity. I hope that I’ll get a few peas (sweet and savoury) off to a start in the greenhouse by the end of this month, however where we are (East Scotland) it may be worth waiting until a little later to sow many of these plants, so that by the time they are ready for planting out, the weather will also be ready to welcome them.

Until then, I’ll keep tweaking The Planting Plan and I have some work to do in the front garden – I’ve begun moving a few shrubs to clear various areas for new planting. I’ve been reading quite a bit about garden design and collecting a few resources to help with this task (more on these in another post) and am looking forward to giving the front beds a serious overhaul.

We’re still in the middle of winter…but Spring is coming!

Too busy gardening to blog about gardening!

Which is a good thing, really! But I have missed writing these updates and sharing the photos and plants which I’ve accumulated in the past couple of weeks.

The weather has, unbelievably, been marvellous – sunny and warm and perfect for getting into the garden and planting out all the seedlings and young plants which have, until now, been crowding the utility/greenhouse, plastic growhouse and my ‘hardening off table’ outside the kitchen door. Over the past fortnight I’ve planted out marigolds (mostly in the veg garden), cosmos (corner patio), zinnia (in the raised bed with other cut flowers) and filled an enormous hanging basket with lobelia.

The garden’s also filling up with some new additions, thanks to a local church plant sale which was quickly followed by the school summer fair – I managed to pick up about maybe 20 different cuttings and small plants for less than a tenner! Annoyingly I forgot to photograph them, so I can’t display this triumphant haul, and I have now planted most of them!

They included some crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ which is now in the front borders in between the rhodedendrons to provide some late summer colour. I’m looking forward to seeing those spring up. I also picked up some gorgeous little forget-me-nots, which I’ve put into the side patio bed (the plan for this has changed somewhat – but that’s for another post!). There was a cutting of rosemary, two cornflower plants, some more lobelia and a mystery plant which I’ve put in a pot to see how it will turn out!

I’ve also picked up some new plants at Gardening Scotland – an event in Edinburgh which featured show gardens, plants, floral displays, food and lots and lots of gardening-related equipment for sale. My mum and I had a great day wandering around and enjoying the sights and scents. There was a wide variety of plants for sale, most by independent Scottish nurseries, and I found some beautiful, delicate alpines (I love them so much I will also do a separate post on these) and two hydrangea. I just couldn’t resist the hydrangea, as I have a weakness for these anyway, but also because these were unusual varieties and beautifully coloured. One is called ‘Popcorn Blue’, basically because it’s blue and looks like popcorn!

So, along with these new additions to the gardening, and thanks to the abundant sunshine, everything is filling out nicely and the garden’s beginning to look properly lush. The nearby trees have obviously filled out and we’re now surrounded by greenery. I’m spotting young birds visiting frequently and if you pause to listen you can often hear the squeaks and cheeps of a little feathered family nearby. The starlings are still doing daily raids too – I wonder if they’ll stick around when they’re grown, as we don’t usually get starlings in our garden.

The fruit and veg in the secret garden’s also looking brilliant, but I think this post is long enough and they deserve their own entry! So, it’s time to get back outside. I’ll leave you with a few photos of the various plants which are new or are showing off in the garden just now…

Laburnum

Hydrangea – ‘popcorn blue’ on the right!

Euphorbia

Aqualegia

Dicentra

Rhodedendron

Hesperis (sweet rocket)

Catching up…

Well it seems it’s been a busy couple of weeks since I last wrote a post. Thankfully, part of the reason for that has been some lovely weather – when the sun’s shining I’m not inclined to stay in the house and stare at a computer screen, I want to get outside and garden!

Some updates on what’s happening out there:

Sad news first – the blackbird nest which was in the ivy on the back wall has failed. I went out one morning about a week ago to discover it was on the ground. I don’t know what happened, perhaps it simply collapsed, or perhaps a fox or bigger bird came along and attacked. I investigated briefly using a stick (it was hard to reach!) and couldn’t see any eggs but it was surprisingly solid to try to turn over. Here’s a photo of Mrs Blackbird which I took literally the day before the nest came down…

I felt quite sad for the pair – they spent so long building the nest and she’d been sitting in it for a few days before it failed. However, it seems that this is common with blackbirds as their nests are so open and therefore vulnerable to predators and the elements. The good news is that I think they are now building another nest inside a large conifer nearby. Will it be third time lucky? We’ll have to wait and see.

I have been watering like mad over the past few days. The sunny and warm weather means the veg beds have been looking parched and the seedlings (cosmos, marigolds and zinnia) which are now outside in the growhouse need a drink almost twice a day! They’re getting quite large now and I’m hoping to start planting them out in the next few days.

The raised beds are looking good – every one now has a little row or sprig of green appearing, with the peas/carrots/lettuce bed looking the most healthy of all. I have high hopes for the peas, especially after they did so poorly last year. The potatoes are now all sprouting, after my worry that they were nowhere to be seen, and even the little leeks are popping up…

…I noticed these yesterday morning and could have sworn they were about a centimetre bigger by the evening after a day of sunshine and a liberal hosing!

I’m also making a fairly sizeable change in the front garden; I’ve removed a large ceonothus and another unidentified shrub which have been taking over a large section close to the driveway. I plan to extend the rose bed and perhaps also use the space for bedding and dahlias. It was a bit of a gamble as they took up quite a lot of room, but the space looks nice and clear now and is another corner to play with, so I’m happy. Sorry no before/after photos because I forgot to take them!

Lastly, a chicken update: we are now getting three eggs a day, as Iona has joined her two friends and begun laying – hurrah! She’s also developing her comb and her voice and likes a good cluck when you go into the run or if she thinks something’s amiss. Perhaps the quietest hen will turn out to be the noisiest?!

New layer Iona gets extra cuddles from Biggest Daughter

Sunshine and snow

It has been a week of VERY mixed weather, with the past couple of days seeing glorious sunshine…while little flakes of snow gently drift down from above. Beautiful but c-c-c-cold.

So I’ve been wrapping up some of my tender plants or bringing in those in pots which I’ve been hardening off, like geraniums and fuschia. The passiflora I planted up in a lovely blue pot just last week is currently ‘dressed’ in one of my husband’s old t-shirts pinned together with clothes pegs. And my pea seedlings, which are showing signs of slight frost damage have most recently been protected by a free fleece cover which I got when I recently bought a little growhouse.

I chose the wrong week to move my seedlings from the utility/greenhouse into their new growhouse (I got it partly for hardening them off and to make watering easier, and partly to get some space back in the utility room!) because I think they’ll be ok inside their little plastic cocoon but I’ve been worrying about them during the snowy days – maybe it’s just too cold for them to be outside?? I’d be frustrated to lose them after spending the last few weeks watching them grow. But I suppose that’s the joy/despair of gardening! Fingers crossed they are protected enough and will survive this cold snap.

Checking the raised beds in the secret garden, I discovered signs of germination – hurrah! The purple sprouting broccolli is emerging, along with a few pea shoots and some rocket and lettuce. I am slightly worried about my potatoes – not a sign yet, although my dad, who planted his just the day before I did, has already got green tops showing.

purple sprouting broccolli

pea

rocket

Back in the main back garden, the blossom on the apple and plum trees is there, tightly wadded up, just waiting for the next warm and sunny day to burst out and really show off. I love blossom. One or two little flowers are already emerging – a hint of what’s to come…

Lobelia learning curve

I sowed lobelia last year, directly into the raised bed I used to grow cut flowers* and they did quite well, but flowered fairly late in the season and are not really great for cutting, they’re better for baskets or pots. So this year I sowed early under cover, with the aim of using the plants for two large wire hanging baskets which we inherited with the house. I have a vision of these lovely trailing purple flowers decorating the front of our house and making visitors ‘ooh’ appreciatively when they visit.

Lobelia erinus

However. Lobelia seeds and indeed their seedlings are ickle tiny wee things and quite tricky to prick out, as I have discovered! It’s not impossible, and I did manage to transfer most of the delicate little plants from the seed tray in clumps into a slightly bigger modular tray. I’m hoping from here they will grow big enough to then plant into baskets so that they can look beautiful at the front of the house, visitors will ‘ooh’, etc etc… However. Having dragged the wire baskets from the back of the shed to have a good look at them, they are BIG. 60cm each in fact, and I’m pretty sure my little crop of lobelias will only fill one of these at best.

I will definitely keep growing them anyway, they’ll do for a smaller basket or pot – but perhaps in the meantime I might have to invest in some pre-grown bedding plants for the hanging baskets, especially if I want them on display any time soon!

teeny, tiny seedling

pricking out lobelia is tricky!

In other garden news, I did the first grass cut of the season – yay! I observed two things:

1) the chickens didn’t freak out as much as I thought they might at the sound of the lawnmower. This is good, as I really didn’t want to have to cut the grass fortnightly during the summer under cover of darkness after they’d gone to bed to avoid scaring them!

2) The grass is in a pretty crappy state. What with scarifying, plus a bit of extra treading around fixing up a chicken run, plus a lot of rain recently, it’s not exactly looking green and lush and is still very mossy. This will be a long-running battle I think, to restore it to a healthy state.

My grass does NOT look like this <sob>

*This sounds impressive, but didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, apart from the cornflowers and a few snapdragons. I am giving it another bash this year and have sowed earlier so hopefully will get better results!

Too many seedlings?

…or is there no such thing?!

I am busy trying to pot up some of the seedlings which are getting taller by the day, including about two dozen French Marigolds.

Marigold seedlings – plus a small tomato plant dontated by a friend!

I don’t really know how many seeds you’re ‘supposed’ to sow but I seem to have a lot of marigolds here. I don’t think they’ll go to waste – I have plenty bedding space for them, or could give a few to family and friends so I’m just growing them all on! I also have a few cosmos and zinnia which need pricked out into bigger pots, but there aren’t as many of these and I kept back some of the seeds so that I could also sow direct into the ground. There are half a dozen sweet pea seedlings too but I’m holding off on planting them out for another week or so when there’s less risk of frost.

In other news today I have managed to clear the side patio, which I’m preparing to transform into an area for pots. I’ve lifted and potted the herbs which were worth keeping and chucked the ones which were past their best. Now all I have to do is put down a weed-suppressing membrane, lay some decorative stones on top and begin a collection of pots for this area. This should make the area fairly easy to maintain, and I’ll be able to chop and change pots depending on mood/season/availability of plants. There’s also a recently planted rambling rose (New Dawn) close to the wall, which I hope will do what it’s supposed to and ramble all over the place, covering up some of the rather drab grey brickwork.

Looking bare…but not for too long

Herbs potted up and looking tidy

As well as this I’ve planted two new climbers – a honeysuckle for the corner patio and a passiflora which has gone into a large blue planter with some climbing support. I love a climber and these two I picked up at Asda for just £2 each.

Passiflora in its new home. Please also note in the background the gorgeous red rhodedendron which is just emerging and is one of the stars of the back garden!

My husband made himself useful in the garden today, and helped me get rid of a large, unidentified, spiky shrub which I have proclaimed extinct. He’s cleared it from the back border, along with an old azalea, opening up this area for some colour. Having put in the Lidl primroses, I realised this corner has the potential to be much more interesting so I’d like to get a few perennials to brighten up the area and make it a bit more pleasing to look at, especially as it’s the main area of view from one of the kitchen windows.

Primroses and a couple of heuchera providing a small burst of colour, but there’s potential for so much more!

So there we have it, today I spent a couple of hours here and there in the garden pottering on a handful of minor jobs but it was still very useful and enjoyable. As I was re-potting herbs and clearing old plants I realised how even the preparation work in the garden can be satisfying – it’s like you’re moving around the pieces of the puzzle so that you can figure out the best fit and make the overall picture look really good!

My jigsaw might have to go on hold for the next few days though as the weather is due to take a turn for the worse. I have set a reminder on my phone to remember to bring in the tender plants I’m hardening off (fuschias and geraniums) as the nights are due to be very cold. Such is the way of Spring I suppose – a few bonnie days can quickly be followed by Winter’s last hurrah…

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

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

Julianne Robertson

writer | communications consultant | garden media specialist