As this is the last day of 2013 I have already moved on and am looking forward to a New Year in the Garden ! I always regard January as a time to walk around the garden taking in ideas as to what needs to be done before the growth begins again in earnest in March . Everything is dormant with all planting reduced to a skeleton outline which I find very beautiful particularly in hard frosty weather . Of course as gardeners we are always watching the weather , too frosty and we worry about another big freeze like the winters of 2009 and 2010 when plants were frozen solid […]
Monthly Archives: December 2013
My Gardening Week December 24th … Task Force Snezana
This week Santa sent me a helper all the way from EULEX in Kosovo and it was a case of have a Happy Pruning Christmas ! Snezana as I have said previously has a deep aversion for learning the latin names of plants but is a demon for hard work , so give her a pruning shears and a slash hook and point her in the direction of overgrown brambles , trees in need of cutting back etc. and afterwards it is like the avenging Passover Angel has walked through the garden ! This week I targeted an area that had got out of control over the past few years […]
My Gardening Week December 14th 2013 … Silver Birch Jacquemontii
The unusual spell of dry weather these past four weeks has meant that I have been able to spend a lot more time in the garden and as a result am way ahead of my normal schedule but the combination of the dry summer coupled with this mild autumn has meant the leaves have stayed longer on the trees but when they started to come down …. they came down with a vengeance ! Normally I am not phased out by fallen leaves and have had no problem leaving them pile up and have accepted it as natural and always wondered at the fixation other gardeners had about clearing and […]
My Gardening Week December 7th 2013
There is still some nice colour in the garden and only two weeks to Christmas . This week I finished tidying up the gunnera by folding the blackened giant leaves back across the crown of each clump which will protect from the worst of the frost of January and February and I like to think these piles of folded giants will provide a warm snug shelter for any passing hedgehogs for the next few months . For the past three weeks I have mislaid my secateurs somewhere in the garden , my familiar red handled Felco one which I have had for the past ten years and no doubt […]
I never promised you a Rose Garden ….. Garden I Pod Country Play List
This my current I Pod country music Garden Play List together with personal notes on the songs as to why they feature . I have borrowed the title from Lynn Anderson’s 1970’s hit as it gives the right gardening vibe but have not included the twee song itself as that would be a vibe too many ! Don Gibson – Oh Lonesome me …. always a favourite of mine recorded in the 1950’s , written by Gibson , a two hit wonder as he also wrote and recorded Sea of Heartbreak and with those two legendary songs to his credit why bother anymore ! Alabama – Speed of the sound of […]