Category Archives: Gardening

The New Greenhouse

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In the south-eastern corner of the Priory grounds, something’s been going on.

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Slowly, during the past few weeks, we’ve been growing a new cedarwood greenhouse.

Buying a greenhouse during the December sales secured us a 20% discount.  But buying a greenhouse during the December sales meant having to build the thing during the balmy months of January and February.

It has been a struggle for Rob the Brickie.  He started off by digging the footings, followed by …

DSC_4150 … a breeze-block base.

DSC_4151It was on this that he built the six course, brick wall.  Measurements and levels had to be repeatedly checked and very, very precise.  I told Rob how, as it wasn’t square and it was the wrong height, we had had to demolish the first wall built for the original greenhouse three years ago.  In retrospect, I shouldn’t have told him that – he did worry so.  Big time.  (He needn’t have – the greenhouse installers told me this was the finest base wall they had ever seen).

DSC_4154When the weather allowed, the wall grew.

DSC_4188On days when it was warm enough; on days when it was dry enough.

DSC_4706A cold snap delayed our plans by a fortnight and heavy snow prevented the delivery of the greenhouse panels; for several days the Priory drive was impassable to anything other than a four-wheel drive – or Shank’s Pony.DSM_8430But finally, a few days of fine weather allowed Rob to finish the wall, the cement to harden and the greenhouse itself to be delivered and installed.

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Here it sits in all its fragrant glory behind the original; rather like stationary railway carriages shunted into a siding.  Forever.  (We didn’t have the space to site them side by side).

DSM_8434Come inside and have a sniff – the smell of the cedarwood is intoxicating.  There is interior and exterior paving still to be laid, water and power to be connected and water butts to be positioned.

I thought for this coming season, I would continue to use one greenhouse open bed …

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May 2011

… for tomatoes and cucumbers.

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Pot grown sweet peppers – July 2011

And the other for aubergines and peppers; both sweet and chilli.  (I’ve already sown the seeds). You see, I have a yearning, a fancy for some ratatouille.  Yep, some rich, thick, garlicky ratatouille.  With crusty bread.  And perhaps a glass of wine.  Or two.

Come summer, pull up a chair and join me.  Just bring your own wine, would you?

December …

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has been either rain-sodden or bitterly cold down at the Priory.

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I much prefer the latter.

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The west pond has been frozen but Solo …

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… no longer ventures out onto it.  A couple of years ago (when this photo was taken) she ran across the ice (chasing a snowball), broke through and had to be ignominiously rescued.  She wasn’t happy.  So no, Solo doesn’t do ice.

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This shallow arm of the east pond has been frozen too.  I love this unkempt area of willow, water and alder.  Grasssnakes live here (though deep underground now), heron visit and moorhen hide amongst the battered reed mace – not very well; they always break cover long before I’m aware of them.

With the ground either wet or frozen I’ve been chopping firewood; cutting back lots of brown, mushy plants; turning compost; tidying outbuildings; sharpening tools; raking leaves and pruning roses and apple trees.

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There are nine old apple trees at the Priory but they have all been abused over the years with, for example, limbs removed leaving horizontal cuts which allow water to pool and the trunk to rot.  They’ve fought back with a forest of shoots and it these I mostly remove or prune back each year – as well as any crossing or damaged branches.  I remove canker too with which the poor things are riddled.

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Sometimes, I’m so very cold (usually when I’ve forgotten an extra pair of socks) that I just gaze into the house and wish I could go inside and play with the boys.

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Thankfully (with a heater and the morning sun) the greenhouse is warm.

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Perhaps a little too warm.  My echiums, uprooted from the outside glum, have responded with vigorous new growth.  I do wish they’d stop it for goodness sake – one has almost reached the roof.

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Sadly there wasn’t enough room for all of them.  This one stayed put -  RIP.

Rob the Brickie (not his real name) does a lot of work at the Priory during the winter.  I call him Rob the Brickie though brick paving is but one of his many talents.   For instance, he loves digging …

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… trenches.  Yep, really.  Ditches for drainage, ditches for power cables or, as above, a ditch for the water pipe up to the greenhouse (June 2011).  Dug, piped and refilled in under two days.  And unlike some of the other ground work at the Priory, Rob’s trenches don’t slump afterwards.

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You might remember that cows broke into the gardens a while back (see ‘Cows In The Asparagus’).  Bless them – how I chuckled at their antics.  In their unbridled lust to gain access to a place long-denied them, they knocked down a couple of stretches of post and rail fencing.

The cows are now indoors for the winter …

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… but the sheep aren’t.  So Rob is replacing the sixty yard length of old, damaged two-rail fence with a stouter, higher three-rail one.

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This is one of two stretches of twenty-year old fence that will be replaced in the next few months.

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Oh and I’m about to lose my terrifically useful holding bed.  I use it for heeling in new trees, shrubs or roses and for holding herbaceous ‘stuff’ – until I have space for them in the borders.   Like I say, terrifically useful.  I shall have to build a replacement.  And I’ll also be losing the asparagus bed which is sad but, you see, they both have to go; we’re getting another greenhouse.  It will be the same size and design as the existing one and will sit right behind it.

It’s been ordered and will go up in the next couple of months.  Rob will lay the pavers and build the base wall.  Useful chap to know, Rob.

And then I will have to think long and hard on which greenhouse to drink my tea in.  Tricky.

oooOOOooo

As I won’t be posting again this month, I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a Very Merry …

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… and a Very Restful Christmas.

Cutting the Flower Meadow

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Have you noticed how ubiquitous ‘Wild Flower Meadows’ have become?  Whether it is a small garden bed, raked over and sown with a wild flower seed mix, or an acre or more of unimproved grassland, summer meadows shimmering with native flowers and buzzing with insects are now widespread; de rigueur even.  And quite right too.  They have a long flowering season, are full of interest and provide a vital haven for our beleaguered butterflies and bees.  That’s a lot of boxes ticked.  But the big head scratcher (if the meadow is of a size) is the annual summer/autumn cut and the removal of all that mown material.

After four years of experimentation with developing a meadow at the Priory, I have found that the best solution to this problem is … (dramatic pregnant pause) … Sam and his Amazing Mowing Machine:

On a perfect sunny day in September of last year, Sam trundled through the meadow gate and set to.  Once his big-green-drum-thingy (that’s a technical term) was full he emptied it into …

… a waiting trailer.  (I had borrowed it and a tractor from Margaret the local farmer).

When the trailer was …

… full, Nick (also borrowed as he can drive a tractor and I can’t) drove up through Margaret’s fields with me perched on top of the hay (as ballast, Nick said).

As we rattled up the long slope, I bounced and I savoured the views;

I hummed and I grinned and I enjoyed my Thomas Hardy/Laurie Lee moment.  And the hay?  We piled that on Margaret’s tottering manure pile.

It was a super, satisfying, itchy, scratchy, bouncy day (see ‘Shaving the Meadow‘) and …

… the result was exactly what I had hoped for.

But this year, after weeks of rain and several postponements, I was unable to hire Sam and his massive mowing machine.   The huge tyres would have chewed up the spongy meadow ground, like warm toffee.  (Poor Sam; it has been a lousy year for him.  He normally cuts seven or eight meadows but this year he has mown precisely … none).

Luckily for me, I had an alternative to Sam.  Each year at the Old Forge (the other garden I tend) I hire an Etesia ‘Atilla’ to cut all the rough pasture.  Look, here it is:

The Attila will cut rough, tussocky grass easily and because of a low slung chassis and wide wheel base it can handle relatively steep slopes, banks and rough ground without toppling over and crushing me.  Which is a bonus.

It’s a rugged and not afraid of aught little machine.  And at £85 for the day, a bargain to boot.

The only drawback is that it doesn’t collect the cuttings but spews them out to one side.

And so afterwards, Jim and I had to rake up all those cuttings.  This was so much fun I could barely stand it.

With most of the grass cuttings raked up, Jim was then able to use the Priory ride-on mower (an Etesia Hydro 80 for those of you who care) to cut the meadow grass shorter still and collect yet more of the clippings.  (The more cuttings removed, the more the soil’s fertility will be reduced; to the benefit of wild flowers and the detriment of long, tall, lush grass.  But hey! – you knew that).

Of course, I still had a problem: what on Earth to do with mountains and mountains of mown grass.  Unfortunately, I had no alternative other than to dump them at one end of the meadow.  Historically, this is one of the places where my predecessors piled lawn clippings.  I would rather have taken them out to the bonfire site and/or compost bins but this would’ve meant repeated driving across soggy, boggy lawns.  And this year, that was a mud-churning and lawn-destroying no-no.

And so the cuttings will just have to sit beneath that oak tree.  Can you see them?  (And the moon)?  In time a bank of nettles will grow over them and within a couple of years the heap will have rotted away to virtually nothing.   Honest it will.  But it is an unsightly solution and not one I want to repeat.  (You can see in this photo how soft the ground is.  Even the Atilla and the ride-on mower have left shallow tyre runnels).

When dry enough, I shall continue to mow the grass over the coming winter until the first daffodil leaves emerge.  In an effort to make cutting the meadow an easier task next year, I’ve just ordered 100g of yellow rattle seed.  This grass semi-parasite should (so the theory goes) seriously reduce grass vigour and growth in the meadow.  Will it work?  Well, I do hope so.  I really do.  You see, there’s only so much hay raking I want to do in my life.  Yep, only so much hay raking I want to do.

As fun as it is.

Autumn Snapshots

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Here’s a few photos taken over the past week or two.

A forbidding portal to another, darker place?  Nah, just the Priory Drive descending through the wood …

… and down into a valley of mist and frost.

Overlooking neighbouring fields.

The tulip tree (right) and beech hedging on the autumnal turn.

The tulip tree again – to the left of the Priory roofs.

At this time of year, mowing is as much about picking up leaves as cutting grass.

Mahonia.  Don’t you just love it?  Nope – me neither but I do concede it puts on a zingy show.

Miscanthus transmorrisonensis in flower.

Yellowing oaks and oddly shaped larch up on the drive.

Nigella seeds and ivy on sedum.

White shapes in a frosted field.

One of many recent, satisfying bonfires.

Oops.  Almost forgot autumnal leaves …. Cornus leaves hanging on, grimly, for another day or two.

Liquidamber leaves – rosy and frosted.

And finally, backlit by todays sun, the very last birch leaves at the Old Forge.

The Tropical Border Revisited

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Back in April, I told you about the new tropical or hot border I was developing (see ‘Planning for the Tropical Border’).  And I promised to let you know how it turned out; unless, of course, it was a humiliating disaster in which case I most certainly would not.

Well, actually it hasn’t been too bad (despite the absence of a ‘topical’ summer) so here are a few shots taken over the last few weeks.

Various Cannas (including coccinea), Bishop of Llandaff dahlias, Fuchsia thalia and Lilium pardalinum have all flowered pretty well.  As did several self-sown, gaudy snapdragons that artfully filled gaps I’d purposefully left.  *Cough*

While foliage plants including Colocasia esculenta, Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’, Melianthus major and the bananas Musa basjoo and Ensete maurelii all put on good growth and should be more impressive still next year.

I’ve really enjoyed watching an entirely new bed fill out with unusual and exotic large plants, with the big leafy planting meshed together with Verbena bonariensis.

Not everything has been a resounding success.  The giant reed (Arundo donax – centre, rear) only threw up three or four canes and looks decidedly spindly; but it is a thug and I’m sure it will muscle itself to the fore next year (though I wish I’d followed Christopher Lloyd’s suggestion and bought the variegated form).  And also (sniffle) my Echium pininana didn’t flower (sob); I grew them from seed last year.

Here they are (right) just after they were planted out in May.  I  had banked on them carrying the whole border on their tall, stately, blue-flowered shoulders.  But no, they have let me down and must be transplanted back to the greenhouse to overwinter, in the hope that they will flower next year.

Easily said.  These are now hefty, prickly plants …

… and moving them is hard work.  And besides, I’m not convinced they will survive the process and another winter under glass.

Colocasia is easier to handle and barrow …

… to where I could pot it up in leaf mould.

I almost put my back out moving this fellow.  The red banana (Ensete maurelii) is instant impact when planted out in the spring.

Though I wonder how much longer I will be able to lift this particular specimen without help.

The hardy bananas (Musa basjoo) are not worth lifting.  They are young and didn’t grow much and so can stay put.  I don’t mind if they are killed back down to ground level – which is what will happen if I don’t protect their stems.  But over in what was an experimental ‘tropical border’ last year is a …

… larger specimen.  Last year I wrapped it in hessian to ward off frost.

But I obviously didn’t do it thick enough and the three-foot trunk turned to mush.   This year I intend to protect it properly.  I put a column of wire netting about the de-leafed banana …

… and then stuffed it with straw (knowing the local farmer is a real boon!).

Hmmm.  Not a thing of great beauty … but it should do the job and next year’s new growth will be given a three-foot head start.

I rather like this border.  It is a lot of work preparing it for winter but some of the plants like the dahlias and melianthus and tetrapanax can be mulched and left in situ.   Having seen how the various plants meld together, my spacing next year should be better and, if we actually get some decent sun, then this new bed should really get underway. And, who knows, my echiums might just flower!