Big Garden Birdwatch and more pruning

After a frosty night, the weather was beautiful today - fine and sunny. 1st job of the day wasn't gardening at all. I watched the garden from the comfort of the bedroom window for an hour, new bird watching binoculars and mug of tea in hand, taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch for the RSPB. needless to say, I picked the wrong hour, and there were very few birds actually in the garden - 2 blackbirds and 2 starlings (which have remarkably bright red feet) I counted the neighbours' gardens as well - saw a robin, a magpie, a wood pigeon, a blue tit and two goldfinches.

Then out into the garden to finish off the final rose pruning. I have four roses in the bed on the right of the garden - a deep red "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", a deep pink "Corvedale" (which hasn't established very well for some reason), A white "Jacqueline Du Pre" (which was the first rose I ever planted and flowers from May to November, virtually non-stop) and a deep pink "Gertrude Jekyll" (which is very highly scented) These roses were sold as shrubs, rather than climbers, but it soon became clear that "Tess" and "Gertrude" wanted to climb, so I added 2 stout obelisks to provide height and support. A third obelisk in the middle was planted with a summer jasmine. The remainder of the bed contains a lavender hedge and a variety geraniums, sedums, japanese anemones, penstemon and aquilegia.

This is how it looked when I started - a tangle of dead stems and foliage.

In addition to pruning the roses, I wanted to clear the debris from last season to allow the daffodils at the back of the border to be visible (they flower in March) and to enable me to get to the vine along the fence at the back.

After three hours, the border was transformed to this

 

I now have a very full garden waste bin.

The garden is now showing signs of coming to life, with shoots visible on some of the herbaceous plants:

This is Sedum Spectabile - it has pink flowers in late summer

This is Euphorbia Griffithii "Dixter" which has bright orange leaves in spring, to match the orange tulips.

This is clematis "Alyonushka" which has deep pink bell-shaped flowers in summer

Signs of Spring.. and more pruning

The first flower of spring is a solitary snowdrop in my front garden. I planted several pots of these, in flower, last year. There are leaves showing for other snowdrops, but this one seems to have jumped the gun.

Getting the roses pruned before they start showing signs of life is my main aim in the garden at the moment. It is so much more difficult to prune hard enough when you can see lots of fresh shoots on the bits you are cutting off - it seems such a waste. So today it was the turn of Madame Alfred Carriere to get the chop. This rose was growing against the fence, but was so vigorous I decided at the start of last year to put a rose arch in at right-angles to the fence, across the path, to give it more support. The only problem is that the arch isn't quite in the right place, which means I have to cut off lots of growth "in the wrong place" i.e. not near the arch, and guide the rest, somewhat awkwardly, over the arch. It took several hours to prune this rose - with lots of long pauses to work out how best to approach it.

Here are the "before" and "after" pictures:

Not many birds are confident enough to use the bird feeders when I am working in the garden. So I was very surprised when, four feet away from the arch, two long-tailed tits landed on my fat feeders and fed for a few minutes, before moving on. I've never been so close to them before - they are usually very shy.

A little bit of pruning

Today was a lovely mild day, following weeks of frost, snow and heavy rain. I only had a couple of hours free, so decided to prune the rose arch near the back door. This is Rosa "Snow Mountain" which has lovely open flowers - white with yellow stamens - and it flowers once in early June.

This is the arch before I started - the growth had got very top heavy, because I didn't prune it very hard last year.

It is easier to see the shape of the rose and the crossing branches, dead wood etc at this time of year. I decided to make up for last year by taking a lot of the branches off and thinning out the twiggy growth. I used  long-handled loppers to reach the higher parts of the arch.


This is the arch when I had finished. the picture is a little dark - it was getting quite late when I finished.

It looks quite drastic - I hope I haven't overdone it. I'll find out in June.

Bleak Midwinter 2

As snow has continued to fall this week, I have had a small flock of redwings and fieldfares in the garden. I've never seen them here before.They migrate from Iceland and Scandinavia to feed in the British countryside, but have been driven into gardens by the inclement weather to take advantage of bird tables.

Closer to the house were the robin and goldfinches on the feeders on the rose arch. I managed to get some good pictures, using the zoom on my camera and then enlarging the photos.

Here is my little robin

And goldfinches on the niger seed feeder

The weather is finally warming a little. I am hoping to get on with the winter pruning this weekend.

Bleak Midwinter

With snow and persistent frost for the last three weeks, with more to come, all I can do is enjoy the view from my window and hope for the best.

Today I worked from home, and was able to watch the birds feeding on my bird feeders - wood pigeon, starlings, blue tits, coal tits, great tits and a very acrobatic robin. Hopefully they will become regular visitors, and help to keep the insect pests down in the spring. I put out a range of food - fat feeders, niger seed, ordinary seed mix and a special insect seed mix, which is a clear favourite with the robin and coal tit. The starlings manage to utilise all the feeders, even those designed for very small birds. I don't mind - they are very lively and amusing birds.

I have two plants which are only borderline hardy, although they both survived the cold snap we had last year. The persistence of the cold weather this year is unusual, and I am concerned that I may not be so lucky this year. I have had the Trachelospermum Jasminoides for about seven years, and it has never shown signs of suffering from the frost. The other is a small New Zealand tree fern which still has its fronds and looks very decorative covered in snow or frost. I will keep my fingers crossed for them both.

First Steps in 2010

Today was a lovely still sunny day, perfect for getting outside and starting on the garden. I started with the the flower bed on the left hand side of the garden, removing the grey verbascums, pruning the honeysuckle and rose and generally tidying up. The bed now looks like this. I think I may have over-pruned the rose -  I hope it will recover.

It looks a bit bare, even though I didn't have the heart to take out the lavender today. There is plenty of room for new plants, so I need to think how best to find plants that will work together. The rose is creamy-yellow, the sweet cicely at the back is white and frothy, there is a yellow/green euphorbia, a green angelica and lots of white garlic chives. So a green/white/yellow theme would be very pretty.But I also have purple chives and ornamental onions, and purple aquilegia. So it looks like green/white/yellow and purple are  in order. I'm not good at restrained colour schemes. I might add some orange and red for good measure. I've got until April to decide.

Other jobs today included weeding some of my pots and taking the old leaves off the hellebores, which are just starting to show colour. These are real stars in early spring, and I am besotted by them. I have fancy double ones in pots and single ones in the flower beds in both front and back gardens. Each individual plant is different because they are hybrids, so I buy them in flower. They are a real sign that Spring is on it's way.

My garden is full of surprises. While clearing away some leaves, I uncovered a ripe alpine strawberry, a little pale but otherwise untouched by the weather.

And a little judicial pruning of the Trachelospermum Jasminoides (which is a tender evergreen climber) revealed my gargoyle, Etheldreda, who has been covered for a couple of years.

I need to do something for her companion, Athelstan, who is threatened with obscurity from another climbing rose further down the garden.

And last but not least, another old friend turned up when I tidied up the alchemilla mollis. Little Hugo got left by the pond last summer and disappeared. It was lovely to find him again.

New Year Thoughts

Rain, snow, frost and a heavy cold have kept me out of the garden this week - which is a shame because traditionally I use this time off work to start on tidying the garden and pruning the climbers before Spring starts to take over. On the plus side, the resulting inactivity has prompted me to start this gardening blog.

Of course, winter weather can damage plants and make the garden look awful. On the plus side, the cold will kill off pests such as aphids, slugs and snails. Since I try to garden organically, this is a real bonus.

A quick tour on New Year's Eve shows what I am up against

This is the rose arch and lavender hedge which I put in 5 years ago. The rose has now covered the arch, and is in need of a good prune before it starts growing again. It has flowered very well. The lavender hedge has grown too large for the space, and I am not very good at working out when and how to prune it, so it has grown leggy. I think 5 years is a good run for a lavender hedge - I am debating whether to give it one more year, or to dig it up and replace it. Last year, the hedge in flower went right across the path, and I had to jump over it, so I think replacing it is the best option. But sentiment or laziness may mean it has one last go this year.

This border is over-stuffed with plants - in summer they crowd each other out and you can't see the fence at all. The obelisks at either end support clematis and climbing roses - Tess of the D'Urbervilles (deep red) and Gurtrude Jekyll (deep pink). There are two other smaller roses there - Jacqueline Du Pre (white) and Corvedale (deep pink) The corvedale rose has been disappointing - it did not seem to establish well and has not flowered. I will give it some TLC and one more year to prove itself. The middle obelisk supports a summer jasmine and a clematis. Underneath these are deep pink peonies, Daffodils (Tete a tete and Jetfire), sedums, hardy geraniums and Japanese anemones.

This bed is due a re-vamp. The huge grey things are Verbascum Bombyciferum. These are bienniel, and should have flowered and died last year. Because of the lack of summer sun they didn't start flowering until October - very late - and they did not flower well. The leaves were pretty, very soft and velvety, but far too big for the position. I will take these out as soon as I get the chance. The climbing rose against the fence is "Teasing Georgia". I planted it in 2001 and it has performed really well. It is usually smothered in creamy-yellow flowers and has a lovely scent.

When the skies are dark with grey clouds and the rain is coming down , there is one plant that positively glows at it's best and makes me glad that I planted it. It is a dogwood, Cornus "Midwinter Fire"

 

The picture doesn't do justice to the vibrant colour of the stems , which  mimic a bonfire - yellow at the base, turning crimson at the end. To get these stem colours each winter, I have to prune them to the ground in March, just before the leaves come. This stops it getting too large, and makes it easier to prune the yew and ivy behind it, but I always feel a little sad when I do it.

One of the challenges for this year is to reduce the impact of the new chequered wall my neighbour built at the bottom end of my garden. It's ghastly, and spoils the impact of the ferns which are actually looking quite good at the moment. This has always been an awkward corner to grow things in because of the two trees in the border, which is why the glass light-catchers are placed there.

So that is my back garden at the start of the year - always a "work in progress", always full of possibilities. I just hope I can get started soon.