Catching Up

Tags

Brecon Beacons, Dove Cottage Nursery, frogs, ponds, West Dean Walled Garden

Heather-clad moorland

I thought it was about time I wrote a post; it’s been a while. I’m not sure what happened but I had got to a point where I just felt like I needed a break. I have spent so much time over the last months in front of my computer that the blog had started to feel like an extension of work, which was never the intention. I’ve missed not reading other blogs, as well as writing my own but one of the downsides with blogging and social media is it’s quite addictive. I thought it was best to go cold turkey. Well I say that, but I have now joined Instagram which I’m loving, so I didn’t manage to wean myself of it completely. I’m not sure whether I should be worried by that or not?

My blogging break coincided with a bout of gardening torpor. This loss of energy and even interest in gardening always seems to happen in late July and into August, a reaction possibly to the plateau my garden and allotment have reached. When it first strikes it takes me by surprise. I love gardening, so the sudden onset of plant apathy is initially worrying. It feels like gardening is in my blood so how come I’d rather be anywhere than my plot. Of course, everyone needs a break even from something they love, to get those creative juices flowing again. A few gardens visits later and a determination to keep on producing salad crops into autumn and winter meant my gardening mojo returned. It’s amazing what the sight of a sprouting seeds can do to re-energise a gardener. There’s also something about the approach of September. I don’t know about you but it always feels like the start of something. More like a new year than New Year. Maybe it’s because for so long the academic calendar governed my life but the first hints of autumn and I want to rush out and buy a fancy notebook and start learning something new. I love this sudden spurt of enthusiasm which helps to temper the looming prospect of dark nights.

Dove Cottage Garden, Halifax

The garden plans can begin again. My bulb order has been made, there are hardy annuals to sow for overwintering and borders to redesign. I’m learning to embrace the shrub. Herbaceous perennials are my ‘thing’ but I am learning that a bit more structure and interest is needed. A sarcococca has been planted in the front garden for a shot of winter scent. It’s strategic planting position will also, hopefully, stop a part of the garden being used by visitors as a short cut to the front door and as a litter tray by my neighbour’s cat. Shrubs will feature more prominently in my back garden too by the end of autumn.

I visited a stunning garden and plant nursery on a recent trip to visit family. Dove Cottage just outside Halifax was hugely impressive and deserves a post of its own. A celebration of late flowering herbaceous perennials and grasses it provided buckets of inspiration for getting some more colour into my front garden for next summer. There was a whistle-stop visit to West Dean Walled Garden in West Sussex which is like a small piece of gardening heaven. I fell in love with it so much I could have quite happily squatted in one of the greenhouses. And finally, we had some free time at last to get out into the local countryside. We walked in the Brecon Beacons and picked bilberries in lashing rain on the side of a mountain. But, perhaps most exciting of all, our pond, the slimy, green soup that was such an embarrassment last year has turned into a proper home for wildlife.

Our frog

I was so disheartened last year as pond plants died and nothing took up residence, although I couldn’t blame them. I had been contemplating moving the pond but then newly purchased oxygenators started to thrive and the water at least looked clear and more inviting. There were no tadpoles though or any noticeable signs of pond dwelling creatures. Then one day, a few weeks ago, I had a close encounter with a frog. I was tidying up the clippings from pruning some box. My hands went in to pull out some leaves and one of them came out, momentarily holding a frog by one of its legs. As my brain registered what was happening I made a fairly undignified screech. I think we were both surprised by the experience. I did get me thinking though. If we had a frog in the garden may be it was using the pond. And it was. A few days after we caught sight of two eyes poking out above the surface of the water. A week or so later I discovered that we have become a two frog pond. Not only that but we’ve seen bees land on the surface to drink. There’s something immensely satisfying about knowing that we’ve helped to create a space that is attracting creatures into our garden. And it has now become part of my daily routine to pop out and see if I can spot Buster (the first frog’s name courtesy of Sara @myflowerpatch) and Betty. I have no idea how you would sex a frog and I imagine the logistics of catching them maybe a somewhat traumatic experience for all parties involved. I am hopeful though that we may have the tiny wriggle of tadpoles next spring.

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The Usual Suspects

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hostas, lamiums, organic slug pellets, salvias, slugs, snails

The Usual Suspects

I don’t like to give in or be defeated by things but I think when it comes to slugs and snails, for this year anyway, I have. There was a time when I would patrol my garden as dusk fell, torch in one hand and trowel in another collecting these slimy creatures. With a bucket of salty water at the ready, they would be disposed of and I would go to bed feeling like I was at least on top of the problem. A sprinkling of organic slug pellets or water bottles, cut down to create a collar-like protection around particularly vulnerable plants, were further weapons in my armoury.

However, this incredibly wet summer has provided such perfect conditions for slugs and snails that it’s proved impossible to control them. I’ll admit my night-time forays have been few and far between, with other commitments taking up so much time. And if I’m honest the prospect of donning full waterproofs to go out and search for slugs in the pouring rain is not the most appealing way of spending my time. I’ve tried beer traps in the past but the disgusting gloop that results is difficult to get rid of. Where do you put a mixture of drowned slugs, slime and cheap lager?

Shredded hostas

Even organic slug pellets which have proved useful in the past don’t seem to be working this year. I have a plastic trough that I grow salad leaves in and I’ve had to resow it threes times now. I’ve even tried planting into it more established little lettuce plants but this didn’t even work. I came out one day to find a slug, in broad daylight no less, manoeuvring its way through the compost, avoiding the slug pellets and hoovering up the lettuce. Seriously these creatures have no shame.

A slimy trail

My hostas are taking on a shredded look, lamiums have been reduced to shreds and a salvia is now nothing more than a stump. I have plants that a slug or snail, the actual culprit is unclear, has crawled over the leaves at the base, up the stem and then eaten the much anticipated flower. Why, why, why?

It’s not like I want to completely eradicate these detritivores. I appreciate their place in the chain of organisms that breaks down plant material but what I don’t understand is, give a slug the choice between some rotting leaves and some lettuce seedlings and it will choose the latter. Maybe it’s the same as giving me the choice between service station sandwiches and a gourmet meal in a restaurant. My lettuce must just be too tasty to slither past. But surely my lamiums and salvias aren’t that much more appealing than a pile of decaying leaf litter. Maybe I just have to accept that there are some plants that I just shouldn’t grow.

Where’s the salad gone?

There was a time when I was pretty squeamish about disposing of slugs but the sense of frustration I feel when I come across plants that have been damaged when I’ve spent so much time nurturing them has led to a more ‘seek and destroy’ mentality. So much so, that scissors or squishing with a welly are now employed. I have more of a problem with snails though, partly because scissors aren’t going to work with that shell and also more because they look like a living creature rather than slugs, which just look like a blob of slime. Writing this though still makes me feel slightly guilty. I don’t like destroying life but when it is estimated that there are up to 1000 slugs per square metre in parts of Britain this summer because of the mild winter and wet summer, which could mean potentially 15 billion slugs in the whole of the country, I don’t feel quite so bad. (figures taken from the Daily Telegraph 23rd May 2012)

In some respects it is my own fault, the overpopulation of slugs is a sign to some degree that the little ecosystem that is my garden is not functioning properly. There simply aren’t enough predators to control the mollusc population. The difference between my garden and my allotment is striking. Whilst the plants up on the plot have not survived completely unscathed they have suffered relatively little damage, birds such as song thrushes and blackbirds are doing a fine job of controlling the slugs and snails. Even though I encourage birds into the garden, prowling neighbours’ cats seem to put many of them off rummaging about in the undergrowth and a back garden entirely surrounded by fences makes access for hedgehogs difficult. I did come across a frog today though sitting under some grasses by the newly installed pond. I don’t think one frog is going to solve my slimy problem though, so for now, I can only hope that at some point soon it will stop raining, the ground will dry up and the slugs will go into hiding for a while.

Garden Centre Splurge

Tags

Discovery Apple, Espaliered apple, garden pond, mycchorizal fungi, Puddle Plants

Our new apple tree

Last weekend must have been the weekend for impulse buying for the garden. Both Jo at The Good Life and Caro at Urban Veg Patch succumbed to the charms of their local garden centre and they weren’t alone. I only popped in to have a look at climbing plants and came out with 2 pots of cottage pinks, a pond liner and an espaliered apple tree. Oh dear, where did my willpower go?

We had been thinking about a pond and an apple tree for a while but had procrastinated and managed to find plenty of reasons not to buy them; we should be saving up, too many bills to pay, how long are we going to stay in this house, all those sorts of things. Then I read a post at The Garden Smallholder by Karen, about her own pond and it got me thinking all over again. I started eyeing up potential spots, we don’t have much room so it would really depend on whether we could get the right size liner and that they weren’t too expensive. So I mentioned it to Wellyman and he said he was keen too. In the case of the apple, well we had the perfect spot for an espalier but thought we had left it too late to find one.

Scroll forward several days to the garden centre. We headed straight for the aquatic section where there was a liner that looked about the right size. Not ones to be totally impulsive, we took the measurments and decided we’d check first at home that it would fit without looking ridiculous and then maybe pop back on Sunday.

We then found the climbers and I had pretty much decided to go for a Trachelospermum jasminoides to go by our front door when I got distracted by some cottage pinks, which I love. There were really lovely specimens with plenty of cuttings potential and then Wellyman, who had wandered off somewhere reappeared declaring he had found the perfect apple tree and it was a good price. He was right, it was exactly the right size for it’s potential home, a two tiered Discovery apple. There followed much humming and hawing, the purchase of the cottage pinks and a trip home to do said measurements. An hour later we were back at the garden centre handing over the credit card. Ouch!

The pond looking a little bare at the moment

So we’re now the proud owners of a pond and an apple tree. The bank balance has taken a bit of a hit. There are of course all the other costs involved, pond plants, stones for around the edge, plants for around the edge of the pond to give it that, well pondy feel. As for the apple, there are posts and hooks and wire and mycchorizal fungi. We spent another hour or so at the garden centre yesterday buying all that stuff. Even so, I’m sure we’ll get a huge amount of pleasure from both. I’m hoping we’ll attract some frogs, I could do with some help on the slug front and I’m looking forward to the blossom on the apple tree and then eating our own fruit in the autumn. Both will add different elements to the garden and I’ll have to learn how to prune an espalier properly, which is good because I like a new challenge.

Hopefully, with a dry weekend Wellyman should get the posts and wires in place for the apple so we can get rid of the temporary supports and then I need to hit the books to find some plants to put around the pond so it doesn’t look so bare. Although I don’t like makeover, instant gardens I never like the stage of a garden where you’re waiting for everything to fill out and there’s just a bit too much soil on display. It’s for this reason I tend to buy to many plants and then realise that it doesn’t actually take them too long to fill a space. So I will have to be more restrained this time.

This morning I made a small boggy area around the pond, digging out some soil and placing some black liner in the hole. I made sure there were plenty of holes in the liner and added some grit to the bottom, so that the soil doesn’t clog up the holes and then backfilled and planted up some Iris sibirica and a couple of ragged robin plants, both of which like damp soil. Hopefully it won’t be long before we’ve attracted some wildlife.

I’d just like to give a quick mention to Puddle Plants. One of the things that had put me off about establishing our own pond in the past had been the price of pond plants. The typical cost at our local garden centres was £6 a plant but at Puddle Plants they are around £2 to £3 and although there is a delivery charge they still worked out cheaper. They are based in Suffolk and have a great website and from ordering on Monday I had the plants by Thursday, so I would definitely recommend them.