Overwintering experiments

The great thing about exotic, or specifically day neutral plants, is that they have no idea that winter is coming. So while the weather is mild they just keep on growing and getting better and better, blissfully unaware that it will all end, very soon.

I've been watching the forecast for any sign of a cold spell on the way, but decided today that I can't leave the job any longer - it's time to dismantle the exotic garden and put it to bed. Seems a shame really - it looks fantastic!











Anyway, for the record, this is what I've done:
Cyperus papyrus, Colocasia Black Magic and Colocasia fontanesii - packed in trays of compost (the Cyperus is in a polystyrene frozen fish trough thingy, the others are in black nursery crates) in the greenhouse topped with straw. I keep the greenhouse just above zero with an electric heater.




















More Colocasias, Canna indica, Canna Stuttgart, Thalia dealbata, more Cyperus papyrus - in a straw lined cold frame in the polytunnel, which is unheated.















One of each of Cyperus papyrus, Colocasia fontanesii and Canna indica left outside and mulched with straw,

Two small Musa basjoo repotted and in the polytunnel, two larger ones left out
All the Dicksonia left out - to be wrapped up
Two smaller Ensete murielii taken in, one large one left out
One small Cycad taken in, the large one left out and wrapped up
Tetrapanax left out
I'll split the Arundos and take some in as an insurance policy
Salvia patens 'Guanojuato' - bits in all places and some left outside
Dahlias -all the ones outside are staying out and I'll mulch with straw.

BTW - a big bale of straw - more than I can use really - £3.25. Cheap insulation!

While on the subject of overwintering, I've built a carrot clamp - first time experiment so we'll see how that goes:

The clamp is a raised earth bed, followed by layers of straw, carrots, earth, straw, carrots...
...topped off with a mound of earth. Which would be just fine, except that the chickens can't resist newly turned soil...
.. so I've added a fleece cover, partly for additional insulation, but mostly to discourage the chickens

Planting up a container on Channel M

My latest Channel M video on planting up a winter container. I quite like this one - perhaps because I watched it with the sound turned down!

How do I love thee, (Autumn),

Let me count the ways:

60 plants in flower
12 grasses in flower, or seed heads
11 plants with colourful berries/hips
18 plants with striking autumn colour

And that's not counting the ones with the odd single flower still just about hanging on, like the Lychnis coronaria, or evergreens and conifers, or plants which haven't started to turn yet, like the larch, or those just generally green but otherwise unremarkable. David and I toured the garden and stock beds this afternoon, noting and photographing anything which looked really good, and the list is pretty impressve.

Some have just never stopped flowering, like Geranium 'Jolly Bee', Anthemis 'E.C. Buxton' and Penstemon 'Garnet'. Others are in their prime, like the Schizostylis and the Asters. Many more are having a late re-flowering, having been dead-headed earlier, notably Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer'. Whatever the reason, the overall result is a garden slowly slipping into autumn, but with colour and interest everywhere.

Pictures to follow here in a bit, but for now, here's the full list.

In flower, 18th October 2009
Fuchsia magellanica var. molinae - natural late flowerer
Fuchsia riccartonii - natural late flowerer
Abelia grandiflora - natural late flowerer
Persicaria amplexicaulis - continual flowerer since July
Geranium 'Jolly Bee' - continual flowerer since June
Achillea 'Summerwine' - continual flowerer with dead-heading
Sedum 'Autumn Joy' - natural late flowerer
Verbena bonariensis - continual flowerer since June
Anthemis 'E.C. Buxton' - continual flowerer since June
Astrantia major - repeat flowerer with dead-heading
Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum' - continual flowerer since May
Cephalaria gigantea - repeat flowerer with dead-heading
Echinacea purpurea - natural late flowerer, prolonged with dead-heading
Aster 'Harrington's Pink' - natural late flowerer
Aster 'September Ruby' - natural late flowerer
Helianthus salicifolius - natural late flowerer
Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer' - repeat flowerer with dead-heading
Nepeta 'Walker's Low' - repeat flowerer following shearing back in August
Rudbeckia 'Goldilocks' - natural late flowerer
Geranium 'Orion' - repeat flowerer following shearing back in July
Geranium 'Nimbus' - ditto
Penstemon 'Garnet' - continual flowerer since July
Prostanthera cuneata - continuous light flowering since first main flush
Erigeron karvinskianus - continual flowerer since July
Schizostylis 'Mrs Hegarty - natural late flowerer
Agave - variegated - natural, but only occasional, flowerer.
Campanula poscharskyana - continual flowerer since July
Dianthus 'Doris' - continual flowering since June
Nerine bowdenii - natural late flowerer
Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn' - natural late flowerer
Salvia patens 'Guanojuato' - continual flowerer since July
Dahlia 'Arabian Night' - natural late flowerer
Dahlia 'David Howard' - ditto
Dahlia 'Honka' - ditto
Salvia 'Indigo Spires' - ditto
Lonicera - probably Dropmore Scarlet - natural late flowerer
Lonicera - a lovely pale yellow one that I don't know the name of
Aster x frikartii 'Monch' - natural late flowerer
Lupinus arboreus - all three tree lupins are in flower - white, blue and yellow
Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' - natural late flowerer
Salvia macrantha var. macrantha - natural late flowerer
Salvia 'Carradonna' - repeat flowerer following July dead-heading
Spiranthes 'Chadd's Ford' - natural October flowerer
Geum borisii - natural repeat flowerer
Anemone x hybrida - lots of different colours/cultivar
Tritonia disticha ssp. rubrolescens - natural late flowerer
Rosa 'The Constant Gardener' - repeat flowering following dead-heading
Leucanthemella serotina - natural October flowerer
Liriope muscari - natural October flowerer
Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii - continual flowerer since late July
Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' - continual flowerer since late July
Papaver atlanticum - repeat flowers on and off all late summer
Aconitum carmichelii - natural late flowerer
Nicandra physaloides - late flowering annual
Nasturtium - late flowering annual
Aster divaricatus - natural late flowerer
Heptacodium miconioides - natural late flowering tree
Vinca major - will flower on and off all winter
Cyclamen hederifolium - natural late flowerer
And a low mat forming plant that I don't recognise at all...

Berries and hips
Holly
Rosa rugosa
Rosa canina
Malus 'Golden Hornet'
Sorbus vilmorinii
Sorbus 'Joseph Rock'
Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion'
Iris foetidissima
Arisaema consanguineum
Cotoneaster - possibly dammeri
Several gorgeous culinary apples, notably Monarch

Plants with great leaf colour
Forsythia (surprisingly good!)
Hamamellis mollis - and all the lovely blossom still to come
Rhus typhinus (frankly its only redeeming feature)
Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple'
Liriodendron tulipifera - wonderful golden foliage
Parrotia persica - scarlet and yellow leaves
Berberis thunbergii - bright red leaves
Libertia 'Taupo Sunset' - striking gold upright leaves
Enkianthus campanulatus - good red leaves
Vitis cognetiae - huge red leaves
Cornus elegantissima - the white margin is fading to a gentle pink
Acer palmatum dissectum - golden filigree foliage
Gleditsia triacanthos - fine golden foliage
Fothergilla major - bright yellow foliage
Acer 'Osakazuki' - just beginning to turn bright red
Acer 'Sango-kaku' - beautiful, divine, lovely. The best of all...

Grasses
It's grass season anyway really so this is basically a list of plants we've got and that I've got names for...

Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'
Stipa 'Wind Whispers'
Molinia - ident uncertain, but really lovely
Molinia 'Karl Foerster'
Deschampsia caespitosa - its seeds have fallen but the bare stalks are lovely
Calamagrostis brachytricha
Miscanthus 'Yakushimanum Dwarf'
Miscanthus 'Zebrinus'
Miscanthus 'Gracillimus'
Miscanthus 'Morning Light'
Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola'
Stipa gigantea

ILove my IPhone..

I didn't want one. I thought it would be too big, too delicate to carry around in the garden, and I was sure email and web on it would be unusable, just like Windows CE.

I was wrong and I repent. I love its slidy screen, the pop up touch keyboard, the built in satnav, the big calculator, the silly pint-drinking graphics, the calendar that integrates to my Exchange account. I could go on. But yesterday I finally got round to doing what the rest of the country does, loading ITunes and looking for music to download. And my world has changed.

I didn't have a Sony walkman, or an IPod, or anything in between. So wandering around the house serene in my own world of music is a novel experience. I just can't believe that I can hear so loud and clear and those around me hear nothing. Bear with me, it's just the enthusiasm of the novice - it will wear off.

Anyway, first thing I did was looked up two pieces I used to listen to when I belonged to a choir in the early 1980's. The key thing for me was finding the exact recordings, by listening to samples. Took a while, but I found them. So, without apology, my first two downloads were:

Polegnala e Todora (Love Song) 3:38
Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir Le mystère des voix bulgares

Dixit Dominus, HWV 232: 7. De torrente in via bibet
Ann Mackay, Choir Of King's College, Cambridge, English Chamber Orchestra

With those two tucked away, tonight's mission is to find a very weird track I once heard which essentially comprised a ball bearing being bounced on sheet metal.....

Channel M latest - lawn care

More videos from me on Channel M

Autumn Lawn care video

Sweet, smoky October

What a month of contradictions October is. My breath drifted ahead of me on my morning stroll to let the chickens out and I left a trail of smudged footprints in the heavy dew on the lawn.

Yet by mid afternoon the sun was strong enough to have me stripped to a t-shirt, sweating over several barrows of acrid chicken-shitty straw and squinting at the bright sun. The solar panel has belted out a tank full of hot water and I've had to water the nursery again. Oh for rain, any rain. We've had none for nearly a month.

The day ended with a crimson sun setting behind the trees and a golden moon rising in simultaneous opposition. The eerily still air was rich with wood smoke mingling with the warm sweet toffee apple scent from the Katsura Tree. It was nearly dark by 6.30 and the temperature plumetted as quickly as the setting sun. October is the month of Libra and the year is at the point of balance. Just one frost will tip it over.

The grass under the apple trees is polka-dotted with Saturnine rings of plump amber and ruby spots as the Egrement Russet and Spartans shed their crop each night - it's as pretty as spring blossom. I leave the pocked fruit for the chickens and blackbirds and collect the best of them as we need them. I know we'll never use them all and I won't be able to keep them against the frost and mice either. So we use them as we go along and give the surplus away. If you happen to wander along the Trent and Mersey Canal about a mile south of Preston Junction tunnel in the next few weeks then do stuff a carrier bag in your pocket - you might strike lucky.

Where were we?

It's hard to know where to start when I've not updated the blog for three weeks. On Sunday we closed the garden and nursery for the winter - always a moment of mixed emotions. The place softens at the edges when we aren't open as we don't trouble with appearances so much, and a stillness descends after the hum of summer. For my part closing up means I have more time to think and to make changes I've been dreaming of all summer. There will be times in mid-winter when I speak to no-one for days. I rather like it.

Dave and I have been away in Prague for a few days but the usual nursery team have been in, clearing out the middle polytunnel in readiness for the exotics to come in for winter, and Peter has cracked on with hedge trimming in the dry weather. I'm lucky and grateful to have a team I can leave to get on with it.

Talking of dry weather, we've had no rain here for nearly a month. The trees are showing clear signs of drought distress and the soil is dust. It surely can't last, but there's nothing on the forecast. Very odd.

By way of a general update, I filmed five more Channel M pieces a couple of weeks ago - here's the first one, on planting an apple tree. I'm quite pleased with this one, probably the best so far.



I appear to have passed my RHS Diploma too, with a scraped commendation in the practical and a decent pass in the final written exam. If my maths is right, I should have a commendation for the overall Diploma. Which I'm quietly rather chuffed about.