Green Houses, green manure, green tomatoes...

I'm a bit like the BBC.I like a good link. And "green" is the link for today.

Now isn't that a sight for sore eyes? A tidy greenhouse! perhaps I should have done a "before" and "after".. but I was a bit ashamed at the state it had got into. The glass needed cleaning, old plants removed, dead flies hoovered up, weeds weeded. So it's all been done, ready for it's winter warmer of bubble wrap.

As you can see the chooks were in close attendance ...

At all times...
Two of them are moulting at the moment. They look a bit scraggy and don't give us any eggs until Feruary. The other one was supposed to be a Rhode Island Red. She should have stopped laying and gone into moult but she hasn't. I suspect we were sold a Rhode Island/Isa Brown cross. it's a shame for her that she never gets a break.

Putting bubble wrap up is not difficult as all the pieces are labelled.... well nearly all..and cut to fit the spaces.  Now it's ready for overwintering some of the pot plants such as the agaves and succulents.

It hardly seems any time since we were taking it down in the spring but then the summer has flown by.

The season in Scotland is quite short. Certainly not long enough for successive crops often advocated by gardening programmes, books and magazines unless they're quick growing salad crops and oriental greens. Even then they'll probably do better with a bit of cloche protection.

So there have been a few bare patches for a while.

We have very light sandy soil that looses a lot of nutrients when battered by rain, so it makes sense to cover it either by putting some old compost on top or by sowing a green manure.
So far I have not been very successful with green manure...

From experience choice of green manure and timing are important. And so is the ability to broadcast sow evenly!  Mine always looks decidedly patchy.... Like this rye grass. I could swear that I spread it better than that.

 But hold on a minute, here's one of the girls getting her share of greens. I let the hens out in the autumn to tidy up the beasties and this is what they get up to...

They've also been at the clover. Here's a nice patch that I planted earlier.

Here's another not-so-nice patch that the hens have cleared....

 I think it's back to covering the ground with a bit of compost over winter.

Last but not least the green tomatoes. We've had a great crop of "Cyril's Choice" an old variety from the Heritage Seed Library. And very tasty they are too. Cyril certainly knew a thing or two about tasty tomatoes. I'm saving the seed for next year.

They ripened well in the green house. The few green ones that were left were put in a warm cupboard with some banana skins. Nearly always works like a charm. And then there's always Spohie Grigson's Green Tomato tart recipe to fall back on.

The last damselfly of summer....

A Wild Goose Chase...

"And far abune the Angus straths I saw the wild geese flee, 

 A lang, lang skein o' beatin' wings, wi' their heids towards the sea, 

And aye their cryin' voices trailed ahint them on the air--" 
  

 O Wind, hae maircy, haud yer whisht, for I daurna listen mair!" 


Violet Jacob, Angus Poet

You would think that catching sight of and photographing the pink footed geese that over winter at Montrose Basin would be easy. They come in from their breeding grounds in Iceland and many overwinter here. There were a record breaking 65,000 at the last count.....

From the end of August  we hear the geese at the basin and flying overhead. The numbers swell to a peak in October. If you go outside at night you can hear the cocophany of sound from the resting birds.

As the sun rises great V's of birds cross the sky, more mature birds leading the way, often in family groups. Apart from the noise of their beating wings there is constant squawking conversation among the birds.
"Are you sure you know the way?", "I think it's that way...", "There's a field down there", "Come on keep up!"
 
If you want to see the geese at the basin you have to pick your moment. Low tide is probably best either before or after they have fed.  Otherwise you are reduced to looking upwards as they fly overhead...

We obviously picked the wrong moment. Every time we went near the basin, not a goose to be seen. Mind you it's big so we may have just picked the wrong "vantage" point.  Most of my sightings of the geese (until today) was of the overhead variety. No wonder I've got  crick in my neck...

I had an idea to take a photo of the Goose sculpture in the town. That's the best close-up you're going to get. You didn't think they were real did you?
Then I went up onto the old footbridge over the railway...

There is a great view from there over the Basin. And What did I spot? Pink Footed Geese. No telescopic lens so you'll have to take my word for it that these dots are geese. If you look carefully you can see some in flight on the right of the picture.

If you would like to see and more importantly hear the geese click on this Montrose Basin. link.

Violet Jacob was a well known Angus Poet who lived withing spitting distance of the Montrose basin at the House of Dun and could see the geese from her windows.

 But being a lady she wouldn't have done much spitting!

Funky fungi

We been photographing fungi again. If you've been round and about the Angus area of Scotland you may well have seen us rushing into bushes, whooping with delight (we live a sheltered existence in these parts) cameras at the ready as we spot another exquisite specimen.

This time we were looking for Shaggy Inkcaps (corprinus comatus). It's also sometimes referred to as the Lawyer's Wig.
Here's some we found at all stages of their life cycle.

Did you know they are edible? I can't say I have ever tried them. They supposedly have a delicate flavour. But John Wright of River Cottage mushroom fame compares eating Shaggy Inkcap to eating boiled polystyrene. Not exactly the sort of endorsement that is going to encourage me to cook them for supper.

If you want to try them the ink cap must be eaten young when it is still an egg shape.

This is probably still okay to eat....

However the mushroom has a very short shelf life and matures very quickly. You can see the gills of the mushroom are turning black hence the name. Seemingly the older it gets the more unpleasant it is to eat.

I think this is a really pretty stage and looks most like the judges wig.

The gills and blackening is more apparent in the next photograph.

The fungi is starting to dissolve into black ink. This is known as "autodeliquescence".

What a great word!

It all looks a bit unappetizing now. And to think I was talking "edible" at the beginning of this post...

Branklyn in the Fall

Branklyn is a wee gem of of a garden. It's about 2 acres in size and situated on the outskirts of the city of Perth. It has a high  perimeter wall which shields it from the noise of the busy main road nearby.

It's been a while since we visited and usually it's  earlier in the year to see the meconopsis and other himalyan plants that the garden is famous for. But we had an unexpected spell of warm weather in Scotland (thank you Portugal and Spain) so an end of season garden visit was planned.

We got to Branklyn this year just as the autumn tidy up was under way. The garden closes in October. You could tell things were winding down. The reception was closed and an honesty box was in operation. The plant sales area looked a bit empty. Netting covered the pond and autumn leaves were being gathered.

 

You'll be glad to hear that there is no sound with this blog .Otherwise you would be hearing the whirr of hedge cutters. What a racket!  And the quiet reflective mood of an autumnal visit was shattered.  They obviously didn't know it was us or I'm sure they would have stopped immediately......

So the gentle meander up and down the paths with stops to admire the view and the plants turned into a bit more of a rush than it otherwise might have done.

But the garden was stunning in all it's autumn finery.

 

Branklyn was built by the Rentons who acquired the site and built a house and developed  a garden between 1922 and 1966. After their deaths it was left in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

It was no mean feat building this garden on a steep hill. Large stones and scree form the base of the scree garden and had to be bought to the site. The Rentons were also lucky enough to know many of the famouse Scottish Plant hunters and received seeds from their expeditions and consequently the gardens became known for several national collections including rhododendrons and meconopsis.

Although the autumn foliage takes centre stage at this time of year, there are still  late flowering plants strutting their stuff. Seed heads and berries also make an impact.

An autumn themed hemerocallis

Kirengeshomaa palmata

 Geranium

These last few plants are not all labelled. Can anyone help with the identification, especially of the hardy geranium?

Very Berry

Berries wherever you look and they're just about ready for picking...

From top left corner in a clockwise direction: sea buckthorn, sloes (or similar), elderberries, more sloes, hip (rosehip), haw (hawthorn), yellow rowan, hip, red rowan .

Middle:  brambles

The only berry missing this year were the blaeberries (blueberries) which had a very poor crop in our part of NE Scotland.

Radical action Part 3 Bedknobs and bamboosticks...

It was our wedding anniversary the other day. Not that I remembered .... traditionally it's supposed to be the man who forgets! We been married for 14 years, together for 17 years and known each other for a lot longer.

So I did feel a slight tinge of guilt to be presented with a beautifully wrapped present and card.

It contained a book that's been on my wish list for a while.

And it doesn't disappoint.  I spent all breakfast "Oohing" and 'Aahing"...

Piet Oudolf is a very challenging designer. I don't automatically love everything he does but some of his plant combinations and ideas show such vivid imagination and understanding of plants as part of the wider landscape that I'm overawed by it.

But it did make me think. Instead of my scrappy, "drawn-on-the-back-of-an-envelope" plan, I should do it on the computer and post it here so you could all see it (and my lack of computer app skills).

So here it is. My first attempt...

A  Miscanthus

B  Phormium Alison Blackman

C  Eremurus Robustus

D  Miscanthus sinsensis "Morning Light"

E  Eryngium agavifolium (may get swapped for E giganteum)

F  Achillea "Terracotta"

G  Crocosmia "Emily MacKenzie"

H  Mecanopsis chelidonifolia

I    Euphorbia Rubra

J   Crocosmia "citronella"

K   Euphorbia Griffithi "Dixter" or perhaps some more E rubra

L   Ophiopogon planiscapus

M  Clematis "Petit Faucon"

N   Melianthus Major

And just in case you were wondering, What looks like Fred Astaire's walking stick is my representation of a part of an old iron bedstead that we bought at Steptoes.

As with all plans it will change depending on how it looks and how many plants we have. And my mood at the time. At the moment some of it is wishful thinking...

This is the planting so far. It looks a bit thin and sad but I can imagine how it might look next year.

A view across the border with the Crocosmia "Citronella" in the foreground and miscanthus behind

Crocosmia "Emily Mackenzie", achillea behind and miscanthus and melianthus major in the background.

 Crocosmia "Citronella" to the fore.

Crocosmia "Emily MacKenzie and Clematis "Petit Faucon" flopping over the iron bedstead.

 

 And last but not least is the "Freya Fence" made out of bamboo to keep the dog out of the newly planted border. And so far it's worked....

The Trials and Tribulations of Cyclamen Hederifolium

For the first few years,  cyclamen hederofolium  and cyclamen hederofolium album grew happily away under the old apple tree bulking up and forming groups of pink and white flowers at this time of year.

I say "happily" but every year they were bombarded from above by windfall apples.

And every year the area became infested with a small spreading weed (something like "Mind your own Business) that formed a dense mat which extended out over the whole area and into the strawberry patch. It was so time consuming weeding it again and again.  Not a good use of my or rather his time. The Undergardener gets all the fun jobs!

It was time for a move. We replanted the area with box plants and mulched with slate. And the cyclamen were potted up . Eighteen months later the plants are still in pots.....

It happens a lot at our place, plants get potted up for a host of reasons and are lined up against the kitchen garden wall. So it was with the cyclamen...

Just as well as it transpired that the wee weed had ended up in the pot too. Believe it or not I had not been negligent in cleaning up the plants and weeding it out as much as possible. The weed, however persists and is as we speak (or type) forming a small mat round the plants.

So there will be no cyclamen planting anywhere in this garden for the time being. Imagine if that weed spreads out of control and I (or the undergardener) have to spend many hours on our poor knees weeding it out for time immemorial....

After cleaning up this pot yet again an application of a fresh layer of grit might sort the problem. In the meantime the pots are on a table. At least we can admire them better at that height.

The flowers are exquisitely formed with up-swept petals on arching stems. They are the smaller cousins of the house and bedding plants available in great numbers in garden centres at the moment. They look their best in drifts under trees as they would grow in the wild.

They come in shades of pink, purple and white.

The plant has attractive ivy-shaped, green leaves with pewter coloured patterns. It makes an effective ground cover plant given the right conditions. The tubers or corms can grow up to 24cm in an older plant. 

The seeds are interesting too but you have to get down close to have a look. After fertilization they form in a pod at the end of the flower stem which coils tightly like a spring and rests above the tuber until the seeds are ripe.

For the sharp eyed among you, yes that is a weed on the right of the photo. But this time it's only Bittercress and it can be easily pulled out!

Fabulous Foliage

There's a new meme by Christina starting today about one of my favourite subjects. Foliage!

However I do find it difficult to make choices for a post about foliage.  

Where do I start? Combinations of foliage? Macro photos? Autumn colour? Foliage with beautiful markings? Architectural foliage?

It's a subject with plenty of scope and I take so many photos ..... so lets have a wee wander through some of the foliage in the garden today with the emphasis on colour and form.

Autumn seems to have come early to our garden and the autumn shades are already much in evidence.  Here's a few examples from top left in a clockwise direction: maple, fothergilla, clematis and red stemmed dogwood.

I like the contrast between the upright peeling trunk of the Tibetan cherry, the strappy arching leaves of the phormium and the purple ground cover of the heuchera.

Next the serrated, glaucus leaves of the Honey Bush Melianthus Major. The stripey leaves of a clump miscanthus grass can be glimpsed behind.

Golden oats (stipa gigantea) shimmer in the breeze and combine with the autumn colouring of the red stemmed dogwood.

Here's another dogwood with almost black stems growing beside the the sumac. In spite of it's size the sumac or Rhus has delicate young foliage in shades of pink changing to green as it matures.

Next is the very elegant acer which has fingers of green leaves normally edged with pink. As the seasons change the leaves take on a redder hue. 

At the moment this stunning plant is in a half barrel hidden away behind a sheltering wall with the other acers. There was not enough shelter in the garden for them initially and their foliage got blasted by the winds. We may try this one in the border next year.

Lets finish this gentle meander through the foliage with a look at the smaller leaves of the often forgotten ground cover plants. From top left: Asarum europaeum or wild ginger , Heuchera "Green Spice",Hedera or ivy, Heuchera " Palace Purple".

Please take a look at Christina's Garden Blogger Foliage Day there's lot of wonderful foliage there. You could also look at Pams Foliage Follow Up. 

And why not post your own foliage photos?