Ch ch ch ch changes

• Took the salvia out of the big pot on the patio and planed it in the west facing bed by the guelder rose. Will disturb the seeds scattered there, but there’s been so much digging by foxes  recently they’re probably toast anyway.
• Planted up the big green pot to brighten up the corner by the tool store.
• Planted out the chocolate mint from a pot where it had grown pot- bound and looked doomed, into the ground behind the hebe. Not sure if I care if it spreads there – welcome ground cover if it survives!
• Planted 2 salvia blue angel in bed with the guelder rose. Moved the little yellow foxglove to under the bay – think it needs more shade.
• Lots of shoots coming from low on the trunk of the cordyline, will leave and see what happens.
• Delphiniums strong enough to go back into garden. Planted three in bed between the dogwood and the lilac. They look healthy enough but not putting on much growth.

Successes

• Might have been wrong about the bulbs I put in last month. There are shoots from the gladioli and the peacock orchids – not as many as I planted, but better than I was expecting.
• Mid-month cut the allliums – seed heads drying brilliantly in the house.
• Feverfew looks fantastic along east facing side.  Heuchera still flowering in east facing bed by end of the month.
• Transplanted helenium and day lilies have lots of buds on them. Cosmos and marigold seedling coming along. Achillea looking great – is taller than echinops, is that usual? Lots of buds on the shasta daisies and wildflowers in the lawn. Mowed the lawn once this month when the cloud of dandelions starting going to seed and it shows there’s now no grass at all at that end of the “lawn”.
• Nandina putting on lots of new growth after its pruning.

 Hmms

• Pictures from other years show the acanthus in full flower by the end of this month, but there’s no sign of that yet.
• RHS advice is that the photinia may have fireblight. Tree surgeon called for advice says that’s unlikely, it’s happened too quickly – tree might just be dead because of the weather conditions in the last year. No idea whether to get rid or hope it will regenerate if cut back.
• Creeping Jenny has been scorched by the heat and looks very sad. Verbascum over, have flowered but have been disappointing – lack of height and longevity. Burncoose stuff from the big order in the spring has been patchy: skimmia, viburnum, honey berry have done well, fox gloves and verbascum disappointing, Alchemilla and hydrangea OK but nothing spectacular.
• Fuchsia being eaten by something, Thought it was leaf cutter bees – cute – but now not cute at all, plant looking very ragged

 Weather

No rain at all until mid month then 3 days of rain in the last two weeks. Has been hot – temperatures up to 30 but the month is ending with high winds and temperatures round 18. No wonder the photinia has had enough.

Theses posts are just for me – a record of the garden month by month: what’s working and what isn’t and how it changes over the year. If you land here by accident, welcome. Feel free to walk on the grass.

Ch-ch-ch-ch- ch-changes

Dug out (large) stump of the choysia killed in January’s snow. Planted the surviving dahlia tuber at the beginning of the month, which survived initial slug attack and by the end of the month had put on good growth.

Advice from RHS for my nandina domestica dilemma (see hmmms for April): This is possibly due to apical dominance, where the upper most shoot produces hormones that repress the growth of lower ones  … Cut back the main shoot now by a half or two thirds. This should encourage bushy growth from lower down. Bear in mind, these plants are fairly slow growing, so it may take a while before the plant fills out. Took out the leading shoot mid-month, let’s see if it makes a difference.

Kill or cure pruning of the lilac which produced long, whippy stems this year which bent over before flowering, hiding the flowers and obscuring everything at the end of the garden. Have cut back hard and will try to keep it trimmed so next year’s growth is less unruly. 

New stuff:

• Six strawberries planted experimentally in a lined sieve.
• 8 Peacock orchid bulbs planted in the edge of the bed n front of the photinia. Bulbs quite elderly not sure they’re still viable.
• Patch of last year’s (maybe year before that’s?) honesty seeds in a little grid between the bay tree and the echinops.
• Six delphiniums in small groups along the West facing bed, 2 by the rose and four in the centre west-facing bed. Two annihilated by slugs, three surviving, one put into a pot to recuperate before being planted out when it’s strong enough to cope.
• Cosmos seeds planted in the centre patch of the main bed.
• five gladioli bulbs planted around the cordyline but they feel very soft and dead – stored too long?
• Marigold seeds in little box on top of the pier and the yellow pot that hangs on the drainpipe. Some planted into the bed by the shasta daisies – the slugs will love ’em.
• Towards the end of the month scattered Verbena seeds, Black Swan poppies and blue ball cornflowers in the back border;  Black Swan poppies, escholzia and Nigella in the side beds around the cordyline and between the dogwood and the bay. Cornflowers and zinnias in the patch next to the honesty and the echinops. Stuck in some very randomly placed sunflowers along the West facing wall without any stakes.
• Sage, thyme, rosemary and oregano planted in pots.

Successes

It’s May, it’s impossible for the garden not to be luscious, and it looks fabulous. The only real frustration is not being able to capture its magnificence in photos. Pretty much everything has romped away, especially the weeds. Am trying to be relaxed about what the RHS are now calling ‘hero plants’, which means the lawn is 80% dandelions, ragwort and green alkanet, while the borders are full of purple dead nettle, lesser celandine, Kenilworth ivy and herb Robert (I know these names because I am photographing everything and running it through Picture This like a horticultural scene of crime officer).

Corner near the maple looks great – aquilegia, loosestrife, heuchera and alchemilla looking good, further along, the euphorbia is brilliant green and the day lilies and clumps of heleniums (transplanted in the autumn from the opposite bed) are doing well. The alliums have been brilliant all month and the woodruff and creeping jenny are covering the bed around the photinia (and threaten to engulf the ornamental grasses).

Clematis has survived its emergency transplant away from the ivy and is growing (slowly) up the pyracantha. Honeysuckle also growing (slowly) up through the ceanothus.

Corydalis is rapidly colonising the walls and steps around the patio.

Patch of Japanese anemones under the photinia is suddenly huge and spreading left and right. It will need to be divided in the autumn.

Hmmms

A few cosmos seedlings have come up but not much other seed success (though possibly not enough time for them to have done much yet). Something – foxes/cats/very large squirrels? – has been digging holes in the west-facing bed which will disturb the seeds – I may go back and top up supplies.

Cut black-spot affected leaves off the rose – not much rose left.

I curse my perennial foe, the slug.

Weather

Despite solid rain through April there’s been almost no rain in May and the soil already looks dry and dusty. Weather has been better, with a few really nice days but still cool and very windy.

Theses posts are just for me – a record of the garden month by month: what’s working and what isn’t and how it changes over the year. There are lists of plants, locations of beds which won’t mean anything to anyone else, and photos, many photos, showing, how it’s all going.

If you land here by accident, welcome. Please walk on the grass.

Ch-ch-ch-ch- ch-changes

So let’s call April 1 the the first day of the gardening year, even if much has already happened including restocking the back border after last year’s fox destruction:  2 nandina domestica, 2  skimmia and a hydrangea Annabelle all planted late February.

This month I have:

Divided the achemilla in the east facing bed nearest the patio.

Moved the fuchsia from the west-facing bed nearest the patio to the east side, moved the gaura to the far-most west-facing bed where it can flop away to its heart’s content without blocking anything else. It seems to have survived despite all advice saying that moving a plant like this is doomed to fail.

Dug out the old lavender with some trepidation – it has been reliable for years, but was getting past it.  One of the cuttings from last year survived and was planted by the ceanothus – a planting decisions that had more to do with how tired I was and where I was standing when I was holding the pot than a considered design decision. However it seems to be surviving.

Moving the lavender revealed some cyclamen and some ornamental black grass which it had smothered and which were replanted in the bed by the fuchsia. Rescued some of the small crocosmia bulbs which had been engulfed in lavender and replanted them in a group. They were almost instantly attacked (foxes? squirrels?) but some still upright. Planted a Lonicera in the centre of that bed and moved the geum from the shade of the bay tree to the edge of that bed to get more light.

Dug out the Salvia Amistad which didn’t survive January’s snow. Planted a guelder rose in its place.

Planted three foxgloves around the bay tree nearest the house.

Masses of flowers on the bay trees and on the forsythia early in the month. Forsythia over by late April and has been pruned. The sweet woodruff might be coming back after the fox attacks of last year, but there are still big empty patches – curse those cubs.

Planted 3x verbascum in the west facing bed between the ceanothus and the cordyline, two of them had started to develop flower spikes by the end of the month. Planted 3x alchemilla at the lawn edge of the back border.

Planted small clematis to grow through ivy on east facing wall nearest patio and honeysuckle to grow though ceanothus. Both experiments!

Successes

Potted up three dahlia tubers last week of March, only survivors of the several I tried to overwinter. Spotted teeny tiny green shoots on one of the of them by the end of the month, so at least one survived!

Harvested several kilos of wild garlic – enough to supply the butcher with the raw material for a line of locally-sourced, wild garlic sausages.

Geum and fuchsia seem to have survived being moved.  Actaea I thought had been killed by last summer’s drought are coming back strongly. Allium planted in the autumn are coming up but buds only, no flowers yet.

Hmmms

One of the new foxgloves has been destroyed by slugs. The clematis has already been eaten all but one leaf – presumably by snails living in the ivy. Have moved it to see if it will grow up the pyracantha at the back but not hopeful.  All but one daffodil in the big pot came up blind.

Nandina planted end Feb have lost some lower leaves – google tells me it’s over/under watering or too much/too little sun or too much wind…

Generally the garden feels behind where it would usually be.  Photos from previous years show more growth and flowers. The picture at the top was taken on April 26 2023, below is from May 1st 2019 – almost the exact same time of year and the same angle but evidently a much warmer spring.

Weather

March weather very wet and cold, but no frosts here since February. April has been the same with strong northerly winds.