End of Month View May 2011

This is the herbaceous garden this morning, taken from our attic window. The big positive from taking a photo from here is you can't see the gaps in the planting!  The surrounding buildings leave a lot of the garden in shade until later in the morning.

The kitchen garden also photographed this morning. The potatoes in the foreground are doing well and the strawberry patch (next to the greenhouse)looks like it going to give us a bumper crop this year. Some of the fruit bushes and trees have been hit by the recent winds and will require some more pruning to tidy them up. There are also gaps in the spinach and peas where the wind pulled the plants out of the soil. They are now lying withered and forlorn. But on the whole the vegetables and particularly the salads and herbs are doing well and giving us plenty to eat.

The greenhouse is now filled to bursting point and some of the plants need to be moved on. The courgettes and sweetcorn need to be hardened off in the cold frame before planting out in a few weeks. I'm also going to plant some sweetcorn in the greenhouse border as an insurance policy. The weather is just too variable on the east coast of Scotland.

 This is one of the borders with the dreaded "gaps" The Jerlusalen Sage Phlomis fruticosa (front) and Miscanthus sinsensis are growing well although the grass should get to six feet in height at it's best. Behind  the phlomis is the wonderful Honey bush Melianthus major  from South Africa. It needs quite a bit of mulching over the winter but can be grown quite easily from seed. You can spot it in the greenhouse photo at the front with the deeply, serrated leaves. I'm trying to encourage the plant in the photo to put on a spurt before the Open Day in July
The bare earth front right is where several verbena bonariensis grew last year in a swathe of lavender. Unfortunately they are short lived perennials and few survived the winter. Ditto the seedlings that were grown on in pots. They are one of my favourite flowers attracting butterflies and bees in abundance and  the seed heads also  provide food for Gold Finches in the winter. They also self seed profusely. A friend gave me some of her seedlings that were potted on from last year so all is not lost.

 There are large groups of astrantia major in the garden partly because I like them but also because they self seed furiously. I've manage to pot on a large number for the plant stall at the Open Day.

The very beautiful anemone rivulris, with the delicate shading on the outside of the petals. I put several in shady corners.

The amazing Kiwi fruit climbing plant with  oval green leaves and hairy red stems. I saw this in John's garden (http://planticrunotes.blogspot.com/2011/05/johns-garden.html) and like a big kid in a sweet shop, I wanted it. They cover a wall or a fence in record time but alas won't yield any fruit in our climate.

This was sold to me as Iris chrysographes, commonly known as the Black Iris. But as you can see, it's a wonderful velvety purple. I don't mind at all as it is one of the most striking colours especially planted in large groups.

 The Ceanothus or Californian lilac never disappoints. It has grown from a small plant (about 30cm) to the large shrub you see in the photo in only three or four years. Every year it has been covered in flowers of the most intense blue.

That's the garden in a paragraph or two with a few photos. June is often the best month in our east coast garden. I'm looking forward to some warmer weather and some more flowers.

Benholm Mill

Coffee and and a warm scone made by Emma at Mill of Benholm . What a treat after walking the dog on a very windy, overcast day.


Mill of Benholm is a working waterwheel mill museum that was renovated in 1994. The museum and visitor centre is now a charititable trust and provides community support for adult learners with special needs in the tearoom,  polytunnel and nursery. There are lots of activities and events for the local community. It's also a great place for bird watching and wild flowers.

The project is run by paid workers and a group of volunteers. Take a look at their web site 
http://www.millofbenholm.org.uk/

The Mill lies in a picturesque setting between Montrose and Stonehaven. It hidden from the road in a hollow and surrounded by ancient woodland.

The path leads down to the tea room. The mill building is on the left and the mill pond on the right.

The mill, plant sale and mill stream

Recycling area

 

The back of the tearoom and log pile from the cottage garden.

Some of the wild flowers growing at Benholm Mill

Orange Hawkweed Hieracium aurantiacum. Commonly known as "foxes and cubs". Garden escapee, good for nectar.

  Cow Parsley Anthriscus sylvetris. Also known as wild chervil or Keck or Queen Ann's Lace.


   

Greater Stitchwort Stellaria holostea Good for honey bees.

  

Common Speedwell Veronica persica Poiret

 

 

Red  Campion Silene dioicia The nectar is good for bumble bees and butterflies.

 Pink Campion Silene dioicia (hybrid between red and white)
 This flower is t looks speckled with pink.

Anyone for a haircut?

When it comes to gardening pruning is not my strongest point.  So I approached my first attempt at the ancient art of topiary with some trepidation!
What is the worse thing that could happen? Probably I would cut too much off. But then it will grow again eventually. A bit like the hairdresser being a bit too scissor happy.

With all new subjects it helps to do a bit of research. This is what I found out:

• First of all you need the right equipment.  I've had a shiny new pair of sheers sitting in their box waiting for such an occasion. I also have a small pair of horticutural scissors for the odd tweak.

•  Many people trim a box ball by eye but if you find this difficult use a circle of wire  as a template. If you want a whole row of box balls the wire template can be used again and again.

• Clean the shears between trimming each plant and keep them well oiled. That way disease can't be passed from plant to plant. This is true for any pruning exercise.

• Container grown box should be kept watered and fed with a liquid feed during the summer months. A top dressing of compost in the spring keeps the plant healthy and green.

• Trim the box on cool, over-caste days as the new growth is easily burnt by strong sunlight.

Sounds like a piece of cake

This is what the plants looked like after my gentle trim.

There's not much difference that I can see!
They are both basically the same shape which is not round more of an oval really. Not a great success. I think perhaps they could do with a feed and more water. They may also need potting on.

And there I was yearning for balls, spirals and cones not to mention the odd peacock or two. Maybe next time....

All work and no play..

With lots of jobs to be done in the garden - you know the sort of thing - weeding, weeding and yet more weeding, I needed some help.  Call in the professional gardener. My friend Lynn was up in Montrose doing some work in another garden and she had a couple of hours to spare before going back to Edinburgh. So good soul that she is she donned the gear again, and fork in hand and secateurs in pocket ventured in to the wilderness to do a bit of a tidy-up.

Lynn works much faster than I do, weeds are examined, loosened with the fork, given a shake and hit the bucket at high speed. Discussions about how to improve the look of three penstemon "Plum Jerkum" (blasted by the harsh winter weather) resulted in the secateurs coming out and in the twinkling of an eye cutting out all the brown woody bits.  Every so often there were whoops of delight as Lynn discovered some Alchemilla mollis seedlings. She knows that they are banned from any garden that I am involved in. A picture of Carol Kline surrounded by them in this month's Gardener's World did little to convince me. Reluctantly I let her leave them and made a mental note to remove them later.......


Lynn's reward for all this hard work? Some shuttlecock ferns that had been crowding out the meconopsis cookei and a cup of mint tea. Then she was off home to Edinburgh to prepare for a trip down to London the next day to fulfill a long held ambition to visit Chelsea.  I told Lynn that I wanted a photo of her with Mr T! Knowing Lynn I think she'd rather be photographed with Cleve West........


Anyway just for Lynn a big "thank you" and a photo of one of her favourite plants....

Kibble Palace, Glasgow Botanic Gardens

 I thought I would share my photos of one of my favourite structures - the glasshouses in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, known as the Kibble Palace. 

The wrought iron structure was built for John Kibble for his house at Loch Long and was then moved to the Botanic Garden site in Glasgow and enlarged in the late 19th century. The structure underwent a major refurbishment from 2003 to 2006.  

Today the Kibble Palace houses flora from the Temperate Zones, including Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, North America, China, Japan, the Mediterranean, the Canaries and Madeira. The Main domed glasshouse has many tree ferns, palms and strelitzia regina or Bird of Paradise plant. Other parts house collections of orchids and tender plants.. 

It's well worth a visit not only to see the plants but to admire this beautiful structure.  You can read more about the Kibble Palace renovation project at the following link:

http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/Parks_Outdoors/Parks_gardens/KibblePalaceRestoration.htm

Changes..

I felt like a wee change. But as usual I tried to be a little too ambitious and there are a few things not quite working. They will be fixed.......( cue smart nephew with IT degree)


So any comments on the new colour scheme so far? Maybe it's too subtle....

The calm after the storm.......

The bad weather hit us a couple of days ago. Heavy rain and gales. Snow in the Highlands.
Not the sort of weather we were expecting in May, heading towards "blazing" June.
We were bombarded by winds of 80 - 100mph, there was no electricity in the city of Inverness, the Forth and Tay Bridges were closed, trains were not running or delayed and trees were down blocking roads. Even though the forecasts had warned us the force of the gale was unexpected.


It is a small happening compared with  tornadoes in the States or volcanic eruptions in Iceland etc but the damage next day was plain to see and devastating for some.


This part of Scotland is famous for it's soft fruit, particularly strawberries and raspberries. With such a warm April the crop was heading for a bumper harvest just in time for the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament at the end of June.  Nearly all the fruit is grown under poly-tunnels which lengthens the season. Gale force winds had ripped off the polythene and mangled many of the metal structures.

Hopefully the strawberry crop can be saved but repairing the tunnels will cost the growers a lot of money.

Fallen trees were a major headache blocking roads and railway lines (and even paths that dog walkers use!)

Locally some more permanent structures such as green houses and gazebos were damaged beyond repair and newly planted bedding blackened by the harsh winds.


The garden at Gallery in Angus was due to open for the first time this year at the weekend. I was going to do a post about it as Gallery is a very fine garden full of treasures. Due to wind damage the opening was cancelled. They are also opening in July and hopefully everything will be flourishing by then.


 In our own back yard the damage was less dramatic but bad enough when an Open Garden day looms. Fortunately plants have a great capacity to recover and can be tidied up, or even replaced if necessary.


While the gale blows there is nothing the gardener can do except baton down the hatches and ignore the havoc outside.
My attitude has mellowed somewhat from the wild woman in Orkney who used to rush about madly trying to rescue precious plants and stop plastic ripping off the poly tunnel. What a waste of time that was!


The winds had died down slightly by the second day but were still blustery enough to cause damage to trees and shrubs. I was so relieved that the two cardiocrinum giganteum (now about 4 ft tall) were still standing unaffected by the turmoil.


The inventory of damage in our garden was as follows:


• Cirsium rivularis  Parts of clumps flattened and flower heads snapped off.
• Crambe cordifolia  The largest of the three had split in the middle.  Cut of the damaged offshoots and  planted in pots.
• Buddleja davidii "Black Night"  Some new sappy growth had been snapped off.
• Clematis armandii  This had come loose from the metal arch over the gate and the foliage was withered and blackened.
• Fruit Bushes  Redcurrants and gooseberries had been battered and lost a lot of the top growth. I thought the fruit cage might have offered some protection.....Wrong.
• Vegetables  The net over the chard and spinach had come loose and caught on the young plants breaking them off. The peas (heritage pea "Gravedigger") were flattened by the wind and look beyond help.

• Herbs Some of the clumps of taller herbs such as French tarragon have fallen over and others now  have a distinct list to one side.

By the time I had finished tidying up I had a wheelbarrow full of debris.

It could have been worse..........

John's Garden

Don't you find that one of the biggest pleasures for gardeners is to visit other gardeners and their gardens?
We visited John's garden is in Perthshire the other day and had a wander. There's always so much to see and inspire.
We've known John since our days in Orkney when he reclaimed the walled garden at Kierfiold from the brambles and other weeds. It was opened it to the public with a small nursery attached and John also ran classes in horticulture.

His trade mark plants are hardy geraniums, aquilegias, primulas and crocosmia.
John trained at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and is a very knowledgeable plantsman. His memory for the Latin names puts me to shame!

I am joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.  I hope to see you there.

A Cuckoo in the Nest?

For those that thought this post might be about birds, you may be a mite disappointed........ as I'm looking at a plants capacity to pop up in the middle of other plants uninvited.

For example on a walk round the garden today I came across an ongoing problem with our  stipa gigantea or Golden Oat Grass. Its one of my favourite ornamental grasses and it so lives up to its name when the oat-like flowers catch the warm late evening light and it almost shimmers in the breeze.  It has grown happily near the house for about three years.

Last year  several daisy flowers (shasta to be precise) appeared to be growing out of the middle of grass. We have never grown shastas in this particular garden. I think it must have come in as a seed when we bought the grass or a very small plant and now it's quite a size.

I hummed and hawed about what to do about it last year. I ended up doing nothing more than snapping off the flower heads and of course the daisy is back again in the middle of the grass bigger and better than before.

This is what it looks like at the moment as the shasta is about to flower. A small investigation last year showed the daisy to be deeply entwined with the grass.

There's also a plant growing through the  Egyptian walking onions (Allium ×proliferum) . A campanula I think.

The agapanthus or African Lily has double trouble in the shape of a dandelion and a grass entwined.

So what to do? The campanula and the Eygptian onions are easy to separate  as the onions grow on the surface and can be broken into individual bulbs. And we should also end up with a free campanula.

The only solution to the other plants I think is to dig up the clumps and remove the interlopers. Probably this something that should be done next spring and the plants immediately put back in the ground although they may be in smaller clumps.

Any gardeners out there got any other suggestions? I would love to hear them!

A Garden visit to Dunninald

We visited Dunninald Garden near Montrose last Sunday for their Open Garden Day. We have been several times before but not when the bluebells are in flower. A wood carpeted with blue is always a great attraction. This did not disappoint. The bluebells (with the odd pink or white hybrid) covered the wild garden on either side of the Beech avenue. The avenue once led to an earlier Dunninald House and must have been an imposing way to arrive. We meandered along the paths that dissect the avenue heading for the walled garden.

The walled garden is a hidden treasure set apart from the house as was the custom in the 17th and 18th centuries. Unusually at Dunninald instead of straight walls the south side has sweeping curves which support trained fruit trees. Walled gardens have a great historical significance in gardening history. Many were in their hey day before the first world war and employed a team of gardeners. I wondered how many gardeners had once worked here supplying fruit, vegetables and flowers for the house.

The gate into the garden provides an tantalizing glimpse of the well tended productive garden beyond.
It is kept in immaculate condition. This is amazing on two counts, Firstly because it is so labour intensive and secondly because there are only one or two people looking after it. The plants are thriving and must benefit greatly from the shelter of the walls and woodland and the micro-climate this creates. What a treat to wonder along the many paths admiring the range of fruit and vegetables as well as the herbaceous borders.

Also of note are the elegant 18th Century Glasshouses which shelter the more tender plants and fig tree.The original heating system of pipes is still in evidence but I'm not sure if it is still in use.

The Glasshouses and cold frames. The brick vents of the heating system can be seen at the base of the windows.

 So reads the Italian inscription on the greenhouse door at Dunninald Walled Garden. This translates as "Each flower speaks to the heart"

 Dunninald is open from 30th June - 31st July (except Mondays) from 10am - 5pm.

7 Ways to Brighten up your Shed

Sheds can be very boring and utilitarian. It can also be a interesting focal point with a bit of imagination.

• Paint it in a joyous colour or like us a tasteful Silver Birch gray.

  

• Hang bells from it. These ones came from New Zealand but you don't need to go that far to get them or add a set of wind chimes.

• Add a plaque....

• Or a quote...

 

• Plant the roof with sedums. We reinforced this roof, covered it with pond liner and capillary matting. Spread a layer of soil and planted it up with sedums, houseleeks and other alpines.

 

• Add a bird house...

• Lastly a window box or row of pots add a splash of colour.

How did you brighten up your shed?

WW : A Dandelion