Autumn flowering crocus - flowering! Crocus Speciosus Cassiope

With the milder weather, Crocus Speciosus Cassiope is suddenly flowering away in the new Curve Border.

They have not been getting any direct sunlight since planted at the end of October, as at this time of year the border is in light shade all day long. So definitely a good bulb for the shady border in autumn.

Next year, with the replanted plants in full growth, the border should look quite pretty.

A moment of observation

Crocus Speciosus Cassiope in the Shady Border

Winter. After a long autumn, long in that often by the end of October it's freezing but not this year, Winter has arrived. A mild day, more like Autumn.

I took a short walk around the garden. I mean, yes, it's a small garden so it's never going to be a long walk. But this wasn't even a walk around the whole garden, just parts of it. Short. I walked with a specific intention. I want to try my best to take a short walk around the garden each day, taking it in, observing what I usually miss. Because even in a small garden it's easy to miss things whilst you are busy working in it.

My health has been crap for a while. Crap in that it means I cannot garden crap. Which is the worst kind of crap. I have been getting help from gardener Andrea, who not only dug out and added some curves to one end of my Shady Border, but has been clearing weeds, mulching, potting up, and sadly for me, planting out bulbs and violas in my large planters. Sadly because I really wanted to do that task. That's one of the best tasks! But health dictated otherwise.

This has meant I feel like I hardly get out in the garden and I decided I needed to remedy this with the aforementioned walk. And the idea is that I'm going to try and do it daily, as weather and health allow, to take a moment of observation.

Today I observed three things, one of which was obvious and the other two required more work to look. Firstly, the obvious observation. The autumn crocuses planted in the curvy end of the shady border are starting to flower. Crocus Speciosus Cassiope, which was planted at the end of October.

I was particularly intrigued by how their stamens were holding themselves up high before the petals had properly unfurled. Maybe trying to be really obvious to any passing bee that there was food available? The stamens do recede as the petals fully open.

In a different part of the garden, after scooching around the Damson Border at the back of the garden, I discovered mushrooms had sprung up on the rotting old Prunus logs I obtained from my friend J-P over at Next Square Metre.

I believe this is Trametes versicolor. It's very common but this is the first time I've seen it in my garden. The logs are on the border between my garden and our not-so-nice-neighbours (the neighbours on the other side are lovely). I put these there, then added some wire and planted the winter honeysuckle Lonicera x purpusii 'Winter Beauty' with the intention of allowing a wildlife corridor, but also attempting the screen off from the no-so-nice-neighbour's rubbish. Viz:

Lonicera x purpusii 'Winter Beauty'

They aren't gardeners.

I found that the honeysuckle had come along since I planted it in January, and I need to tie it in a bit more. I've planted this variety because it flowers at the end of Winter, deliberately to help entice me outside on cold days. Whilst it doesn't look like much now, the flowers, oh, the fragrance! Something to look forward to at Winter's end.

After about 10 minutes in the garden I was done in. As well as ME, I'm getting over a virus which means double-whammy exhaustion after a short space of time. I returned to the house, to bed. However, I was rather happy about what I found, and feeling good for having been in the garden for a short time.

Winter is here, but there is still lots going on in the garden, and I'm going to try and get out there daily/regularly for a short walk, and a moment of observation.

Whilst I won't try to to blog about my daily observations, I will try and do a weekly post. Kind of a small goal to help me focus, and to make sure that I do indeed get out into the garden for at least five minutes every day. I wonder what I'll find tomorrow?

Adding some curves to the Shady Border

When I've been photographing my garden in recent months, I've shied off capturing the conservatory end of the Shady Border, because I was quite unhappy with it. I realised the border needed more height and a better shape than the straight lines it had. It felt flat, and the Ligularia and self-seeded Astrantia seedlings were taking over the space.

This part of the Shady Border before the work was done. The tree towards the left was sitting
in the pot temporarily.

I had been unable to do anything about it as I had limited energy to spend in the garden as it was, and most of what I did have focused on the veg growing. I did manage to work on a simple redesign and I even bought a tree, Amelanchier laevis 'R.J. Hilton' to help add the height. Last week, after finally being able to find a gardener, the skillful Andrea, to help me, the work was done.

The new curvy border. 

The border as been widened a bit, and the straight lines have gone. Although it looks a bit bare as I await the replanted plants to get growing again, I still think it looks better than how it looked before.

The Amlanchier is almost bare now, so you don't immediately see the height, but it will be more obvious next Spring. By getting rid of some of the crowding Astrantias, I'm hoping the Akebia quinata will feel more like growing next Spring. This is an evergreen, and one of the jobs for next time Andrea is here, is to put up more wire to train it along the fence more. I think the Amlanchier and the Akebia, along with the Potato tree, Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin' on the left side, should help fill up the fence more and add the height and structure the border needed.

Pulmonaria 'New Ensign' was quite a clump, so Andrea split it up and planted it throughout the border. The same with Omphalodes cappadocica 'Cherry Ingram', and several primulas including Primula 'Guinevere'. Taller primulas were moved to the middle of the border. Also planted was some bulbs of the autumn crocus, Crocus Speciosus Cassiope, which should come up in the next few weeks (they were trying to grow in the bag!). Plus I have a bunch of other bulbs to plant for Spring and early Summer flowering, such as Snowdrop Woronowii, Fritillaria Meleagris, Allium Oreophilum and Narcissus Pappy George.

Finally, a couple of stepping stones were added. This is to make it easier to access the back of the border, and so I can access the hook from which my retractable clothes line attaches too. These will 'disappear' into the border once the new growth starts next Spring.

On the whole, I think the new curves in this area of the garden gives it a much better look and feel. I'm very happy with it, and with my new gardener, Andrea*, who has been a real find.


*Heartfelt thanks to Joanna Dobson, who saw my plea on Twitter and recommended Andrea.

Driving Miss Juneberry*

Back in April, after a visit to the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, I decided I wanted to get myself an Amelanchier tree. One common name for Amelanchier is Juneberry, another being Service Tree. Here's a reminder of what they look like in Spring.

Beautiful, aren't they.

I have a section of my Long Shady Border that is crying out for some editing (begging for it...!) and have just the place for the tree. I did a lot of research and decided that the particular Amelanchier that would most suit this site would be Amelanchier laevis 'R.J. Hilton'. It's a smaller variety, liking moist acid soil - perfect for the damper end of this border.

It took quite a lot of research and many phone calls to finally find a nursery that sold this tree, one over in Retford, 34 miles away. The nursery owner had an 8ft tree. Excellent. The thing is, we only have a small 3-door car, and they didn't do delivery to Sheffield.

I wasn't to be deterred. I thought about it and came up with an idea of how I might safely transport an 8ft tree home. Carefully wrap it up in fleece, tie the fleece, the carefully position it in the car, with me stuck in one corner of the back seat looking after it whilst Kevin drove.

And that's just what we did.

Me with the carefully wrapped up tree

We then artfully put it in the car.

Back end

Front end

You can see from the front end why i was so concerned about wrapping up the tree. I knew we would have to hang part of the tree out the window and by doing so, the high winds whilst driving up to 50 mph could risk damaging the tree.

Driving Miss Juneberry home:

And that's how you transport an 8ft tree in a small 3-door car.

So what does the tree look like now at home? Well, you have to wait for that. I've finally found a gardener to help me out but he cannot be here until end September/early October, so it won't be planted in the border until then. So you'll have to stayed tuned for the next episode.


*Full credit to J-P over at Next Square Metre for coming up with this in a tweet. It was too good not to nick.

Gardening with ME: what's flowering in the garden in June

I've not been up to blogging or gardening recently. The ME has been bad and I've needed to rest. I was able to get out into the garden and take some photos on the weekend, so I thought I'd just post some pictures of what flowering in the garden in June.

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In the Long Shady Border: Amsonia tabernaemontana (Eastern Bluestar), Primula beesiana, Astrantia 'Hapsden Blood' and Polemonium caeruleum (Jacob's ladder).

Primula beesiana

And Geranium nodosum

plus Geranium nodosum 'Clos du Coudray'

Overview of the Kitchen Garden, the Broad Beans flush with health & flowers, with Geranium 'Ann Folkard' in front.

Sun lovers, Salvia x jamensis 'Nachtvlinder'

Allium cristophii (Star of persia)

The Herb Border includes Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna', Allium atropurpureum and the seed heads of Allium hollandicum 'Purple Sensation'.

Allium atropurpureum

The Herb Border earlier in June with Allium hollandicum 'Purple Sensation' in full flower, plus Allium schoenoprasum (Chives).

Looking through from the driveway.

In the Alpine Wall, an alpine Oregano (I need to find the label!).

Sisyrinchium 'Biscutella' (Blue-eyed grass 'Biscutella').

Campanula poscharskyana (Trailing bellflower).

Next to the Obelisk, Dianthus cruentus (Blood pink).

Looking up through the arch at Rosa 'Seagull'.

View from the conservatory.


Hopefully my health will improve enough soon that I can actually do some gardening, not just photograph the garden. Despite the ME, the garden has plenty of flowering interest in June. And I do get to sit in and soak it up, which is no small pleasure.

View from the study

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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.

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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.