Gardening with ME: a gentle start to the year with Cornus pruning

Cornus alba 'Elegantissima' each end, with the darker Cornus alba 'Kesselringii' in the middle

I am making a gentle start to the gardening year with pruning my Cornus (dogwood). Noticing yesterday that the new leaves on my Cornus was already unfurling, I realised that it was time for me to prune the shrubs back so that I would be able to enjoy the colours (above) next winter.

For those not in the know, Cornus is often planted for it's beautifully coloured stems which are a highlight of winter in the garden. You only get the coloured stems on new growth, so an end of winter prune is necessary to continue to get the colourful stems year after year.

Leaves already unfurling on Cornus alba 'Elegantissima'

Pruned back, with the bed a little tidier too

Whilst they look a little cut back in their prime, I can assure you they will be just as in the first photo next year, only with even more stems. Plus, I'll have this to look forward to in the Autumn,

Autumn leaf colour

Being stricter with pacing is important when gardening with ME, and you should stop when you are still feeling good, else you risk just making yourself worse. This is known as post-exertional malaise, and you get pay back in exhaustion and pain way out of proportion compared to the task (exertion) you undertook. I stopped after that I finished pruning, not pushing myself to do more. So I'm pleased with the pruning and my pacing.

Today just happened to coincide with me feeling up to a little gardening, when the sun also happened to be out. A simple pruning task was a nice way to gently get me/ME into the gardening year.


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I welcome your thoughts and comments. And if you blog about gardening with ME/a chronic illness, do link to this post in your blog and leave a comment below with a link to your post, so we can all find each other.

About Gardening with ME

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Recent Gardening with ME posts...
  Gardening with ME: facing some hard facts
  Gardening with ME: a review of 2015

Autumn colours in a young garden

My garden is just under two years old and for the first time, I'm enjoying autumn colours in the garden. Last year autumn seemed to pass the garden by. I think that was because the high winds blew leaves off trees and shrubs early, but also because most of the plants were so young that there wasn't a lot on show.

This autumn I've been treated to a lovely display that I'm gaining great pleasure from. It's also a hint of bigger things to come, as the garden develops and the plants fill their spaces.

Cornus alba 'Elegantissima'

 

Section of the Long Shady Border, with Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' (bottom right)

The golden buttery colour of the Morello Cherry leaves

Acer palmatum 'Sango-kaku' (bottom middle) just starting to change.

 Prunus insititia 'Shropshire Damson'

The delightful mess of Salvia uliginosa (blue flower)

 Rudbeckia 'Takao' at the front and the grass Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau' behind

A young garden, but it is already giving us great pleasure. I hope you are enjoying autumn in your garden too.

End of month view: March 2014

March has been a month full of quiet growth in the garden. Not much in the way of drama, just a gentle unfolding of new buds, leaves and early Spring flowers.

Overview of the garden, including new mini-greenhouse

Flowering and in leaf now appears to be quite a few blue-purple flowers...

An unnamed variety of Pulmonaria 

 I love the pink-purple tinge in the broad bean flowers (Imperial Green Longpod)

Muscari latifolium

 The 'back' of the Pulsatilla vulgaris is as pretty as the front

The tiny, fragrant Narcissus Minnow

A rather early flowering of Lavandula stoechas 'Fathead' (it's supposed to flower in Summer)

The cornus border

Early March I pruned back the Cornus shrubs to encourage lots of new colourful stems in anticipation of next winter. I've taken cuttings from the pruned stems in the hope that I might generate some new, free plants. I've not done this before and I'm not making a massive effort, I admit. I've just stuck some 'sticks' in the sides of part of the veg borders, am keeping them watered and hoping for the best. I want to focus my limited energy more on the vegetable & fruit growing, so any new Cornus shrubs I get will be a bonus.


I've added some further planting to what I'm now calling the Damson border, including Pulmonaria, Primula vulgaris and Alchemilla mollis. In early to mid Spring this part of the garden is in light shade, so planting 'woodland' plants is relevant. In between May & August it gets several hours of direct sun, so I've also added Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer' for colour during the warmer months.

I've also placed my little Pukeko into this border, that I picked up in New Zealand several years ago. No worries - it isn't pining for home - it's ceramic, not real!

Although the Damson tree looks dead in this picture, it's actually got lots of healthy buds on it and I expect by next month it will look more lively.

The shadier end of the Long Shady Border. Lots of bluebell leaves have come up.

Thanks to my wonderful and ever-helpful partner Kevin, I now have training wire for all plants that need it, including the Morello Cherry above, which is also now budding.

He has also put up my steel artwork of gum leaves and gum nuts that I picked up in Australia during my visit in the (Oz) summer of 2012-13. This is now tied to the pergola, which you might just make out in the top picture of this blogpost. I am growing clematis up each side of the middle and right side of the pergola supports, with the aim that eventually they will reach and intermingle with the artwork. On the right side will be Clematis alpina 'Pamela Jackman', and on the left, when I've purchased it(!) will be a fragrant Clematis armandii.

I've also planted the grape vine that was on my to do list at the end of last month. This will grow up the left side of the pergola. My pergola isn't that big, so it's possible 3 different climbers will be too much for it. But let's see what happens.

Carrot (left) and parsnip (right) seedlings

In the kitchen garden the broad beans are flowering their socks off, and my first carrot and parsnip seedlings have poked their heads up. I'm rather chuffed about the latter as I was told not to sow carrots & parsnips until May in Sheffield. But the person giving the advice did have her allotment on an exposed hill, whereas I'm in a slightly more sheltered space. I also have been protecting mine with horticultural fleece at night and on the colder days. It shows you, once again, how important micro-climates can be in the garden.

Herb border (front) and strawberry border (right, next to house)

My herb border is coming to life and I'm very pleased to see I have new shoots of my French Tarragon coming up. Everything I planted last summer seems to have survived. I need to add some low growing plants to sit under the obelisk. I have some Cyclamen hederifolium and Cyclamen pseudibericum seeds I got from the Hardy Plant Society and I'm going to see if I can get them to take. If so, they will go here.

The strawberry plants are sending up new green leaves, although I sadly don't yet have flowers as Jono tweeted his did, the other day! This border also has Erythronium Pagoda, which I hoped would be flowering now, but it is just holding out on me! What's the bet it's been and gone by the end of April...

I have also tempted fate by starting to put outside my Lemon & Lime trees. During the cooler months they stay in the conservatory, and during the warmer months just outside. So if we get a cooler night (which I count as 5 degrees or less for the purposes of these two trees), I can easily bring them back inside again.

View of the garden from the driveway

View from conservatory

I picked up a new mini-greenhouse at the beginning of the month and it is now starting to fill up with a mix of hardy perennials and vegetables sown in modules/small pots. Some of the veg, at least, I hope shall be planted out during April, unless we suddenly get a cold spell. That's not going to happen, right?!

March hasn't been an explosion of growth and colour in my garden, rather a gentle welcome to Spring. I suspect by the end of April the garden will look dramatically more green and floriferous.

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End of month view is hosted by Helen Johnstone, aka @patientgardener. Visit Helen's blog for her March 2014 EOMV and links to other bloggers EOMV posts.

End of month view: February 2014

It's amazing what a difference 28 days makes in the garden. Since the end of January the amount of light coming into the garden has doubled, and the middle veg bed is now getting full light during part of the day.

More sun in the kitchen garden

The height of the sun in the sky increases daily and with it the light that the garden receives. This is good for the veggies, and the broad beans and garlic are very happy.

Cat-Merlyn posing with the broad beans, plus garlic sticking it's leaves up

I thought it was time to dig out the old mini greenhouse and put it together as I'm starting to sow seeds. Sadly, the new cover I got for it was the wrong size. Well, not so much the wrong size as the fact that manufacturers have changed the sizing of recent frames, making them smaller, and meaning I cannot purchase a cover the right size to replace it. Very frustrating! I have considered trying to make one bespoke, but have instead decided to buy a completely new mini greenhouse. When it comes to gardening and having ME, I have to carefully decide where to put my limited energy, and I'd rather put it into growing plants than trying to make a (not very easy to make) bespoke plastic cover.

Hedera colchica 'sulphur heart',

plus snowdrops and pulmonaria planted under the damson tree

I haven't done a lot of planting this month as it rained for much of the month until the last 10 days, though not as bad here as down South. The ground was sodden so not great for planting into. In the last week it's been better and I finally planted my ivy Hedera colchica 'sulphur heart'. This is a lovely variegated evergreen climber, and my hope is that it will not only start covering the fence, but also give more interest and colour to this dimmer corner of the garden. I added some snowdrops under the Damson tree that I picked up at Hodsock Priory, Galanthus Ikariae and Galanthus S. Arnott. 

The other changes since the end of January are growth! Such as the Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin', also growing up the fence. 

Lots of new growth on the young Solanum

It was with great joy that my Galanthus Bagpuize Virginia suddenly popped up. I wasn't sure they would come up as I dug them up before we left Oxford last March, and they sat in a pot for most of the year, leaves died back, until I finally planted them in the Strawberry Border last November. My lesson from this is that maybe you don't really have to plant snowdrops 'in the green' as is the usual horticultural advice. Or maybe I got lucky?!

Galanthus Bagpuize Virginia in the Strawberry border

Strawberry border with 7 Galanthus Bagpuize Virginia

My first daffodil has flowered, only in the last day, along with Crocus snow bunting.

I pruned back the perennials and Rosa Seagull (growing up the arch) and tidied the herbs in the Herb Border.

Herb Border

And I have this Hellebore, Blue Lady, to plant in the middle of the obelisk.

Helleborus 'Blue Lady'

The hellebores in the Cornus Border are now fully flowering.

Cornus border

As is the first of the gorgeous Iris Reticulata J. S. Dijt.

Beautiful...

The long Shady Border is starting to see sights of further bulb/corm growth, and the Sarcococca confusa is still flowering and fragrant. I need to get onto putting up the proper frame for the Morello Cherry in March, so hopefully by the end of next month the current bamboo cane against the fence will have gone.

Shady border

Overall, the garden has really started to come to life by the end of February. My jobs for March will be focus on some vegetable seed sowing, some in modules and some direct into my new vegetable borders. I'm quite excited that I'll finally be using these borders!

I also need to get the grapevine in, which will be growing up the pergola, and cut back the Cornus shrubs so I can get the lovely red stems to bring joy next winter.

February has been a good month, despite the rain. I'm looking forward to March.

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End of month view is hosted by Helen Johnstone, aka @patientgardener. Visit Helen's blog for her February 2014 EMOV and links to other bloggers EMOV posts.