A Work In Progress

Resuming where we left off last week with soils at college, had us all comparing our ph levels and soil texture on Tuesday. Mine being a comfortable loamy sand with a slightly alkaline ph, some others in the class were not so lucky, especially Judith who could have thrown a pot out of her heavy clay sample. I may have the smallest garden in the group but at least the soil is beautiful and stuffed with worms! In the afternoon we continued with plants and teamed up to plan a mixed border with the emphasis on the herbaceous planting. It is a very rough start as you can see, but with a little tweaking for homework we should be able to pull something workable out of it all!
Pics- Harlow Carr beginning to look very bleak.
"If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it" Anon

Rhythmic Gardening

Sunday turned out to be a challenging sort of day, we ventured over the M62 to St Helens to see Dave's dad. Predictably the journey was fraught with difficulties, first the wind was strong and gusty causing low speed limits on the motorway, eventually resulting in an ominous looking queue, so we exited to take a short cut only to discover that road was also closed, we ended up in Wigan, so much for time saving! Anyway the upshot of it all was four and a half hours in the car to spend only two hours with George, still it was good to see him looking well. Therefore getting up at six on Monday morning was not a prospect I was looking forward to, but once at NC life and gardening resumed its stress less rhythm, reminding me just why I made the change of jobs in the first place. Progress is definitely being made as you can see from the pics, the peach house border is now finished and we've nearly cleared the main border, uncovering many fat buds as we go, promising a good show for spring.

"When we pay attention to natures music, we find that everything on the earth contributes to its harmony"

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Be It Ever So Humble

The weather wasn't so good for gardening on Saturday but because I'd finally managed to buy some waterproof over-trousers I didn't give a fig, rain and wing hardly made me pause as I was toasty warm.
I also got a peak inside NC house as the Grahams needed some furniture moving around so Giles and I popped in to lend a hand. What a rambling old place it is, full of secrets waiting to be discovered, the walls are adorned with old pictures, many of them covered over for protection, but you still get glimpses of ancient Graham ancestors slumbering quietly within antique gilt frames. When compared to my own warm little house it makes me glad I don't have to live there! Gardening wise we tackled cutting back the main herbaceous border, which resulted in armfuls of stuff for the compost heap, that's me standing on top trying to squash it all down, imagine the amount of black gold that will come out of that!

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home"

Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

Winter Is Coming

There is an air of scurrying about now as peoples thoughts turn towards Christmas, even down in the woods with Chum all the animals seem to be extra busy. The squirrels are almost as thick on the ground as the fallen leaves and so intent on filling their winter larders that Chum nearly managed to catch one, maybe they can feel the cold weather approaching at last. All things in my garden suddenly look dull and damp and I've had a disaster with my violas. Dead-heading them this morning they are in a pitiful state, eaten by slugs, covered in black spots and even infested with aphids. That's the last time I'll buy cheap punnets from B&Q, at the moment I don't think anyone would believe a student of horticulture lived here! Maybe they will revive a bit in the spring, and if they don't at least the bulbs will soon take over.

"And now when comes the calm and mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home,
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smokey light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood no more.
William Cullen Bryant

Tree Of Life

My education in fruit continued on Wednesday when it was time to clear the greenhouse for winter. The two figs, Brunswick and Brown Turkey had finally dropped their leaves so we could have a good tidying and pruning session. The Brunswick which is altogether a neater plant and best for the small garden needed little attention, but the Brown Turkey had burst its pot and proceeded to send new shoots everywhere, you could barely get in through the door, it was time to show it who was boss. I think you'll agree it looks much better. Figs are the earliest domesticated crop known to man and are thought to have been deliberately cultivated 1000 years before cereals, this is because some are parthenocarpic and do not need to be pollinated to produce fruit! After lunch we watched an extraordinary film about the symbiotic relationship between a tiny wasp and the sycamore fig in Africa,it was called the African Queen a natural world programme, I was amazed at the diversity of life just one tree supports. Sometimes it's such a privilege to gain an insight into nature.

Pics- Autumn at Spofforth, the  Cotinus tree looking superb, and the Brown Turkey fig before and after.

"Train up your fig tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it"
Charles Dickens

Two New Topics

It seems we're not destined to return to our normal classroom at college just yet, the white board in there resolutely refused to function so we were moved into the smaller classroom next door. As it happens we all liked it much better, so there is talk of raising a petition to see if we can persuade the powers that be to lets us stay, I do hope so as it's much warmer! At last the dreaded botany and design parts of the course are over and we have had two new topics to contemplate, soil, a much broader subject than it sounds and at last some plants. Herbaceous perennials this week. with our homework being to come up with a list of at least 50 for various different seasons, aspects and soils, it will be good fun to trawl through my books to find them, so better get on!

Pics- More autumn colour from Harlow and my new friend, hoping for some Bettys crumbs no doubt!


"Art thou the bird whom man loves best, the pious bird with the scarlet breast, our little English Robin, the bird that comes about our doors when autumn winds are sobbing" William Wordsworth

Aromarama

It was a day full of fragrance at NC on Monday as we set to mulching the peony border with shredded twigs. Standing on top of the warm decomposing pile we were bathed in aromatic steam from the eucalyptus wood, not quite as restful as a day at the spa but it smelt just as good! After lunch found us cutting back yet another herbaceous border, this one in front of the peach house and largely overtaken by giant bronze fennel which we thinned down to six or seven plants, not an easy job as we discovered the large tap roots seemed to go down as far as Australia. The aroma of aniseed surrounded us on all sides and almost made us dizzy with its intensity. I'm just glad we didn't have to shift logs, it took the boys a whole day to remove the old tree and now, apart from the stump, you wouldn't know it was ever there.

"Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same"
Helen Keller

Pics- just a couple of snaps from around the garden, I especially like the ladybirds huddled together to hibernate.