Remains of Autumn

Autumn has come and gone really quickly this year. We had only one good week at the beginning of November before cold set in and leaves started dropping off. Leaves are no all gone, and mostly collected.
However,, surprisingly is it a bonsai that insists on holding on to it's leaves despite the cold.
I created this bonsai from quite a large shrub, and it is still work in progress. It is extremely tough, and lives outside all winter, unlike my other bonsai, which come into the greenhouse as soon as winter sets in. I think it is quite a cheerful site, in what is a fairly miserable time of year.



I started this bonsai at a workshop at Kew, and have no idea what cultivar it is. The only information I can provide is that it is covered in dark pink flowers in May. (Could not find a picture in flower, time I had one)

Return to the Garden

I've absented myself from this blog and to a large extent form the garden this summer. For a change we concentrated on the house and let the garden take care of itself, which it has done very well.

While we had an excellent show of roses in June, the dry start of the summer meant that we did not get much repeat flowering until September.
Autumn colour was also strange this year, it started late and lasted only for a few weeks at the end of October before the leaves dropped off.

Now begins the slow job of clearing the leaves from the paths and gravel areas, before it all disintegrates into a mush.

The Advantage of Good Training

Not unexpectedly, most of our spring flowering shrubs and trees were about 3 weeks late flowering. The wisteria was no exception, and to my annoyance I found the first open flower on the evening of the 23rd after the last of our visitors left.
Despite a few hot days, it is still in flower.

Wisteria sinensis 'Alba'

This is just a sideline, not at all what I was going to write about. While many plants were late, the roses seem to have caught up and flower at the expected time. The rose I was going to write about is climbing up a post supporting the pergola over the kitchen door. I planted it 2 and a half years ago as a small bare root plant. It's rambler, so quite fast growing, and I trained it carefully around the post despite the temptation to let it grow up and cover the pergola. This year my patience was rewarded; It is covered in flower from the ground to the top of the post.

Rosa 'Malvern Hills'

Open Garden

On May 23rd we open the garden for Iain Rennie. Two other gardens in Wendover were also open. There were no clouds in the sky, an unusual event in these parts.

We had 192 visitors and raised £590.

The garden looked great. The flowering cherry was still in full bloom despite the heat.

Prunus 'Shirofugen'

In the back garden the tree peony was the star of the show. It was never before in flower on an open day and it attracted well deserved attention. Unfortunately I lost the label and don't remember the name of the cultivar. A quick search on the Kelways website, where I bought it didn't reveal any similar pictures, so it will remain un-named.

Tulip Follow Up

In late autumn 2008 we planted a new tulip display which I wrote about in 2009 (you can find the original post here).

The tulips were planted much deeper then previously, using a useful tool called an auger, that can be mounted in a drill. This makes digging the holes in our heavy clay soil a much more pleasant chore. I filled each hole with grit before planting the bulb and hoped for the best.

After the freezing winter we had I didn't raise my hopes too much, but I am happy to say we have a fantastic display. About 95% of the tulips came back, and they look just as good as in the first year.

There is hope for the non-diggers among us after all.

Easter Report

Easter has come and gone, and it looks like spring is finally here to stay. While the weather during Easter was not at its best, we had enough dry weather to finally build a gate for the back garden.

We built this from scratch using treated timber from our local yard, and a roll of willow from our local garden centre. I think it turned out really well.

A funny phenomenon I observed in the garden in the last week is that I have daffodils and tulips in flower at the same time, which never happened before. It looks like the daffodils were late, and the tulips are not just on time, but some of them are actually slightly early.

I look forward to another week of beautiful weather.

Spring

Today was the first day of spring in the garden (happily coenciding with the official date). It's the first day this year when I could leave the greenhouse open for the afternoon without the thermostat starting the heating and work outside without a coat.

The snowdrops have been showing their heads for a while, but as soon as the weather turned milder they have been flowering their socks off.

Galanthus nivalis

When we moved to the house there were a few large clumps of snowdrops in the garden. Over the years I split them and moved them around the garden, and I now have quite a few sizable clumps. There is nothing like a good cover of snowdrops on the first day of spring.



Most of the Hellebores are also starting to raise their heads, and today I cut off the foilage so the flowers can be admired (most leaves become quite tatty over winter and are best removed to leave room for fresh foilage). In milder years they flowered much earlier.

Despite the cold weather, a few growing in a sheltered spot by the patio are already full bloom.

Helleborus ‘Silver Moon’

Wisley Light Magic

Not much has been happening in the garden in the last month. While our snow covering only lasted for a couple of weeks, it's been too cold to attempt any jobs other then the most basic tidy up of slimy frosted perennials.

The Ligularia was particularly badly affected by the snow. In a mild winter it will hold on to some of it's leaves until spring, but after the first snow they were flopping on the ground in a slimy mess, so they had to go, cold and all.

In the quiet period after new year we visited the RHS garden at Wisley. The garden was open until 6:00pm, featuring some great light installations illustrating this post.

Some interesting ideas for the garden perhaps .....

Meanwhile hoping for a milder February.