Digging, Daffs & a Dismal Display...

With the weather still doing its best to keep the soil in the garden and on the allotment a bit too wet to work, I am beginning to panic about getting the allotments dug over. For a few days the ground began to dry up and then more rain fell! My back will certainly be tested as I try to get the digging completed through this month, so that sowing can begin in March!

For now, Mrs McGregor and I are still enjoying our home grown winter vegetables as well as the sprouting broccoli which is now producing plenty of spears that can be cut and thrown into a steamer until tender – delicious! The thought of another season of tasty, home grown vegetables and all the ways to use them, spurs me on to keep digging, raking, sowing and weeding through the year. 

Much of the garden is still a mass of brown twigs and jumbled protective growth that I have left on the plants in case of hard weather. It is now time to prune my Clematis back to a few inches from the ground; each stem to a pair of healthy buds that are beginning to swell ready to grow away and produce the frame for beautiful flowers later in the summer.  We have a small pine tree in a corner of the garden and one of the Clematis scrambles through it to provide extra interest. I enjoy pruning the Clematis back and pulling with all my strength to bring down last year’s growth from the tree so that it can be chopped up and added to the compost heap! Sadly the tree will shortly become too tall, too close to the house, so we will take it down later this summer and the Clematis will have to content itself with the garden fence behind in subsequent years!

I planted lots more spring bulbs last autumn and the Daffodils are beginning to push through the soil and grow at an alarmingly fast rate. My Crocus have not made a good display – just a few rich orange and black flowers but many have not appeared at all. I think the problem may be mice or voles and our cat is now too old and well fed to be motivated to help out with pest control, so the culprits would appear to have got away with it for now! 

You may remember that there was much excitement in the McGregor household when the early Daffodils ‘Rinjveld’s Early Sensation’ flowered at the end of November. They have not produced many flowers this year and are somewhat buried under the Box balls in one border. I think they are congested, too dry and need a bit more light; the leaves are very healthy and copious but no flower buds. I will make sure that I lift the clumps and divide them before the leaves die back, so that they can be replanted around the garden in different spots to light up the winter borders once again.

Early Colour

The mild weather has meant that many plants are beginning to flower earlier than usual in our garden. We have already had the ‘Rinjveld’s Early Sensation’ Daffodils  flowering in November and now my Lenten Roses (Helleborus x hybridus) are rearing their beautiful heads, crowning the handsome deep green leaves below. We have a particularly striking apple green seedling that is covered in strong bud branches and about to show off the freckled flowers with matching fluffy stamens that complete the picture.

 All this activity has encouraged me to begin tidying up my borders, although I am wary that we could still get a spell of hard weather. At the moment, plants are suffering from wind scorch on their unseasonally soft growth rather than frost damage, which has been the case for the past three winters! Tender plants such as Penstemon and hardy Fuchsias may look scruffy but all of the old growth will need to remain for another month or two if I can bear it! Never the less, the borders are taking on a different feel as the green shoots of Daffodils and Snowdrops begin to pierce through the soil, along with the perennials  Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, Hemerocallis (Day Lilies) and Pulmonaria ‘Blue Ensign’. Pulmonarias are such useful plants for shade and early colour – often starting to flower in January and February, when there is usually very little apart from evergreens to give interest.

Evergreens are the furniture of the garden and still give the most interest at the moment. The Myrtle (Luma) that I planted as a cutting from my grandmother’s garden years ago is now a huge tree. The tiny, deep green leaves are very wind proof and the bark is now mature enough to take on a beautiful cinnamon colour despite the local cats using it as a scratching post! Of course, plants that are known as ‘semi evergreen’ such as Abelia and shrubby winter flowering Honeysuckles have also kept their leaves because of the mild weather and we even have a semi evergreen climbing Honeysuckle Lonicera ‘Halliana’, in flower! The Hebes in the front garden have made pleasing, evergreen mounds and one has fluffy white flower clusters, which are more usually out in late summer, when they attract butterflies and moths.

 My Miscanthus grasses have looked amazing all winter; their leaves and stems bleached out to faded browns and the skeletons of the feather duster flowers hung on until the last vicious gale that we had stripped them bare. There are already plenty of new shoots coming up from the ground, so I have removed the old growth and chopped it up into short lengths for the compost heap.

One of the bins is ready to be turned and the compost closest to the base is rotted enough to use as mulch over any bare soil as I tidy the borders. This really does help to keep the weeds down and will help to protect my Crocosmia clumps if hard weather does threaten the soft shoots that are appearing. 

Mr McGregor

Lawn Care Tips

Being keen gardeners our lawn always gets a lot of use through the summer. Whenever friends visit, they inevitably ask if they can look at the garden often with a glass of wine, when the weather allows! Children are safe and happy to play whilst the adults relax and leave them to their own devices. This usually results in even more wear and tear, but is counteracted by the laughter and animation that friends bring.

This week I have been busy giving the lawn some beauty treatment that should pay off through the winter months and next spring! I started by removing excess moss with a spring tine rake – a physical job but very satisfying as the moss is ‘scarified’ to reveal the earth underneath. The next task was to spike the lawn all over to aerate the soil and help with areas where the drainage is not as good as it could be. A special machine that removes plugs of soil can be purchased for this, but I like to go over our smallish lawn with a garden fork and sink the tines right in at about 15cm (6 inch) intervals. A good wiggle of the handle then opens up the earth channels. Once I had completed these two jobs, I was ready for a cup of tea and one of Mrs McGregor’s scones and strawberry jam!

Then it was off to the local garden centre to buy some sharp sand that I could mix with sterilised topsoil, in equal quantities. This was scattered over the lawn and brushed into the holes. I will now wait for a few days before using the autumn lawn care product that I also purchased. This will strengthen the grass for winter, by feeding the roots and also kill anymore pesky moss that appears now that the days are shorter! With the rain that is forecast, it will mean that I will not need to worry about watering it in either!

We have an area of rough grass in dappled shade under trees that often looks a bit neglected – an ideal area to brighten up with some Daffodils in spring. I have chosen a mixed selection that will flower over several weeks and can be left to die back naturally after flowering before the grass is mown.  After gently throwing the bulbs down so that they landed at random, I used a bulb planter to remove plugs of earth and placed a bulb in the resulting hole – the correct way up of course! Then it was just a case of replacing the turf topped soil plug and gently treading it down, keeping the buried treasure safe until next spring. Planting at the correct depth of three times the depth of the bulb seems cruel but ensures that they will flower in subsequent years and not come up ‘blind’.

Hopefully these Daffodils will slowly multiply to give a much need boost to a quiet corner of the garden for many years to come.

Mr McGregor

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Mr McGregor: My Flourishing Garden

It is always great to see something a bit different in spring, and to see blue plants is definitely a rare sight. Our gardens seem to get ambushed with the yellows of daffodils, the array of bold colours of tulips and the purples of the crocus, which is lovely to see, but seeing a landscape full of blue flowers is something I marvel at.   

Blue Jacket Hyacinths are in my opinion a one of a kind plant that makes a huge impact (it can grow to approximately 10 inches high). They are most certainly one of my favourites and as they give off an amazing scent, I thought it would be the perfect plant to have around the front door.

As soon as I saw there was a bit of sun, I leapt into the garden and got stuck into planting my containers. The front door is now looking well dressed and the house even more welcoming. The neighbours have been coming over and praising me, which is always wonderful to hear. They have even begun talking about starting a village garden competition.

But my work had only just begun...

I had a fair amount of pruning to do in the front garden, but I also found time to get some summer bedding planted, which included Gazania, Begonia, Petunia and Impatiens (Busy Lizzie).
The cottage garden has attracted some butterflies in the past, but this year I really want to get some other faces visiting. My blackthorn has been in the garden for a couple of years now and the creamy white petals have just bloomed. The fruit will be ripening in the autumn and ready for harvesting in October/November, but I’m sure the birds will get at them first.

The Pyracantha is one of the blackbird’s and thrush’s favourite, which is always lovely to see in the garden, but before then the family and I can enjoy the blooms that will come this season.

Mr McGregor

P.S. When your hands are stained by all the gardening, add a teaspoon of sugar to the soapy lather when washing and your hands will look cleaner than ever before.