Off The Edge Gardening

One of the hardest of tasks for many gardeners is to remove perfectly healthy plants.  By their nature they are nurturing souls, sensitive to a fault and to destroy is not in their nature.  It doesn’t matter that the plant in question is in the wrong place, a horrendous colour, swamping everything else, just darned ugly, it is sacred.  Don’t tell me you fell for that nonsense?  We love nothing better than to pull trees up with our bare hands or perhaps rip them out with our teeth on a particularly wearing day.  All just for fun.  The truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.  Sometimes tough decisions have to be made, especially where space is limited.  Take the point in question.  We have a tiny garden.  These crocosmeia are very pretty.  However they are not pretty enough, there are other more attractive prospects waiting in the wings.  They hold no emotional ties as they were here when we arrived.  And they are too invasive by far.  They are doomed.  When I gather the strength and the inclination, they will be dug out.  As anyone who has tried to remove these South African corms before, that will not be as easy as it sounds.  Next year I will probably be writing a parallel post.

Above is one of the new borders created this year at The Farm.  It is a large triangle situated at the entrance, the “hello look how wonderful and exciting we are” spot.  Up until last autumn it contained a half dead tree of unknown identity, a manky palm and the obligatory mophead hydrangea. All were removed; pronto, forthwith, without delay. The ground was dug over, various bits of bailer twine and agricultural ephemera removed and spent mushroom compost dug in. From the moment the first replacement plant went in there has been an ongoing battle raging between us (the goodies) against the twin evil nations of the Zombie Rabbits and Hell’s Chickens (the baddies).  Each week I return to this spot and pick up the plants they have scraped out of the ground and left to die or the shredded leaves they can’t be bothered to eat but have caused the demise of the young specimen.  My shoulders drop a little, a few tears drop, then I mobilise the backups (cannon fodder) and we start all over again.  So, at the risk of tempting that darned harpy Fate, I would just like to say that all things considered, it is looking pretty good at the moment, perhaps we are winning.  All this has been done incredibly cheaply growing from seed, using plug plants bulked up in the greenhouse and other such bargains. There you are, I have blown my own trumpet. Upwards and onwards!

Today I gave my poor neglected plot some attention.  For the last couple of months we have had scaffolding at the back of the house and a gaggle of builders working hard to fix various leaks.  The scaffolders did a great job as scaffolders.  The builders did a magnificent job as builders.  Neither of them were much cop as gardeners.   To be fair, they were probably better than I would be at their jobs.  Still, my approach to this ordeal was to prepare as much as I possibly could in advance and then not look at all until it was finished.  No peeking until the last  pole had disappeared down the back lane and the sacks of left over materials were removed from the front garden.  It could have been worse, definitely.   Or perhaps better.  The combination of compaction, cement spillage, sand storms, big boots and opportunistic weeds all during peak season have been the downfall of our bijou garden.  Today I rushed a few victims to intensive care, I scraped up piles of cement and mortar from the borders.  I attacked the bindweed that had taken the opportunity to reinstate its dominance and I planted some purchases that were desperate to feel the soil around their roots.  The liberated include this rich purple dahlia and its deep orange companion.  A lot done, an awful lot still to do ……

Last weekend we travelled to Somerset to celebrate a good friend’s wedding.  All was well, the weather perfect, the bride and groom radiant, we made new friends and I almost won the All Badgeworth Freestyle Croquet Doubles competition (we was robbed).  It was an extremely satisfying day.  The party was held in the Just Married’s vast garden with views across the flatlands to the monumental Crooks Peak, on the Mendip Hills.  They moved in barely three months ago.  Their new horticultural project is at present little more than a field girdled with trees including apple, cherry, and walnut.  At the far end they have installed their bees and plan meadows and wild areas to keep their livestock happy.   These busy chaps contributed to the celebrations by donating a pot of honey to each guest.  I found the prospect of the newly weds creating a garden together from scratch an extremely romantic notion, the result being a happy amalgam of them both.  It will undoubtedly be a very happy place.

We stayed the night a few miles away with our ex-neighbours, affectionately known as The Swotties.  Even though they left for a caravaning adventure a couple of hours after our arrival we were welcomed and warmly embraced as always.  They live in a ridiculously beautiful farmhouse surrounded by gardens which are as chaotic and clever as their creators.  Strange squat chickens and pompous cockerels parade, fig leaved hollyhocks stand sentry at random points, roses tumble, geraniums spill, wildflowers intermingle, of course there is wisteria and an orchard and in the vegetable garden leeks are allowed to seed because they look good.   The house is full of objet trouvé and love.  Each room has various vases of harvested blooms slowly dropping petals and pollen to the surfaces below in a dignity of decay.  Created from the bones of another time, this ancient house has been transformed into an enviable home and garden.  In fact if they weren’t such lovely folk you might growl a little when you considered this idyll, or even plan a well placed pinch or two.

The peach tree was a wedding gift to The Swotties, only a couple of years ago.  This year it has a dozen or more velvety fruit.  Just peachy.

 

In your own time ……..

This was definitely the right time of year to run “Colour Scene”.  Everything at the moment seems to be in Technicolor, as if it were being viewed through a filter, intensifying and concentrating the hues.  This is in part due to the copious rain we have had in the last few days which is exacerbated by the re-emergence of our summer sun.   In fact I have been spoilt for choice on my subject matter.  This poppy is as classic as Coco Chanel, perfect in its poppiness.   The crumpled tissue paper bloom is not scarlet, not crimson, not ruby, not maroon or even claret, but red, red red.  One small point of order, this beauty and many similar that were propagated from the same pack of seed, were meant to be white.  You win some, you win some.

Yellow marigold actually.  Surely you will forgive me the lack of “belly” as we have a surfeit of yellow.

Meet my new boss, Max.  I will be helping look after his garden.  Whether or not I can depend on his assistance I have yet to ascertain.   My initial survey of this garden included sightings of eucryphia, illicium (had to get ID from clever people on this one), many magnolias, several mature apple trees, an enormous Cornus kousa “Porlock” in full flow, a giant paulonia, an embothrium and a few “unknown but intriguing and hope to find out later’s”.  An adorable puppy and wonderful specimen trees and shrubs, it is like my own personalised version of “These are a few of my favourite things”.  Forget the “brown paper packages”, bring on the fern leaved lomatia, you can keep the “bright copper kettles” they are trumped by a fragrant Katsura and as for the “blue satin sashes” you’re having a laugh, I want to play with this little kelpie (in break time only of course).