5 small ones in, but a big 1 out

It wasn't meant to be like this. Yesterday was meant to be a small potter with two key tasks:

1. Plant three free autumn-fruiting raspberry plants.
2. Plant a lovely white anemone next to a relocated shuttlecock fern.

Might even have time to plant some bulbs. A manageable agenda, relaxing even, & leaving plenty of time/energy for any little detour jobs that will inevitably catch my eye when I step outside...

More rasps, more of the time!

Free rasps taste better...

Yes, I know we've already got loads of raspberries, but a friend had three plants going spare. These will slot nicely into some gaps we have, plus they'll extend our raspberry season as these little feelas fruit in Autumn.

Only recently did I finally get my head around the concept of 'extending the season'. Loads of shows & articles talk about it, but I never really grasped the point of early & late version of the same thing. But after years of  mindlessly buying the same fruit & veg all year round, the food miles debate has finally helped this particular penny to drop for me. & if you too are still struggling to grasp what I'm blathering on about, here's my working out:

• Our raspberries fruit for about 3 weeks, around Wimbledon time. 3 weeks only. In a whole year.
• So, to have fresh raspberries at any other time of the year, I would have to buy them in.
• But when fresh rasps are out of season across the UK, they have to be shipped from overseas.
• Shipping British native fruit from the other side of the world just so I can have fresh rasps in December is a bit daft, & pretty eco-irresponsible.
• But... but... if I plant different varieties of rasps, varieties that fruit earlier or later than the ones I already have, then I can have home grown rasps all summer & into Autumn.
• & if I really must have rasps in December, I should stick any Summer surplus in the freezer.

Yay! Saving the planet has never been so tasty!

One rasp in, two to go...

So that's new rasps in old gaps, all watered in & labelled.

While I was in raspberry district, I tied in any additional growth on this Summer's canes. The stricter, Monty Don style regime plus the Alnwick garden head-bend I wrote about last time seems to be going ok: we've had some blustery days recently & everything is still in good nick. Plus that whole bed is still as tidy as when I did all that, so the compost mulch seems to be doing a good job of keeping the weeds down. Hooray!

Next...

Welcome to fern corner

The bottom right of the garden can get a bit gloomy under the long, long shadow cast by the huge hedge. So I've started filling it with ferns.

Fern corner - before

A couple of years ago, I bought a small pack of 4 varieties & planted them around the base of the forsythia. I had no idea exactly what they were, but there's a ferns article in this Saturday's Guardian Magazine, so at least I now know that the big fella at the back is a Japanese holly fern (& nice also to see that Hart's tongues are native - I'll hunt one of those out). Lord alone knows what the other 2 are though. & 1 poor soul has sunk without a trace, no doubt due to lack of sun - they were all the same size in the packet; how was I supposed to know how big they'd get? The packaging didn't even bother to give their names, let alone mention how lanky they'd be. Ah well, on the bright side, 3 survivors out of 4 is pretty good going for me.

Joining these hardy souls this weekend is a little shuttlecock fern. We have a huge one in the greenhouse, & a couple of years ago this spore-off-the-old-fern germinated & set up home at the foot of the compost bins. So last year I potted it up & dumped it in fern corner, to be "properly positioned later"... finally, it'll get it's toes in the soil.

A light in a dark place

Back when I planted the 1st 4 ferns, I also popped in some primroses & some white tulips, for some "splashes of seasonal colour" as the journos say. The blooms were part of a long term plan to try some of the design techniques I'd read about, which claim to make a short garden seem longer with only the power of strategic planting:

Strong colours & large things close by, pale colours & small things down the far end.

So about a month ago I bought a lovely anemone, to throw some more whites amongst the greens. & again I dumped the pot in the border & left it to be blown over several times under the guise of "checking it's in the right position"... I never learn...

But before those 2 finally get their roots in the ground, a few things have to come out - as you can see from the picture above, fern corner is a tad, erm, "wildlife". All the rampant herb robert, brambles and leggy buttercup thingies have to go.

Rotten discovery

Clearing the undergrowth, I find this sorry state:

Mouldy forsythia :(

Nope, that's not snow. That's mould. The forsythia has been here longer than us, & has quite a lot of dead wood at the back. I try to keep it tidy, but only in the last few years did I learn about the "flowers on last year's wood" business, so I've spent many years pruning it at the wrong time. But to be honest, I don't think this is a dodgy pruning problem. I suspect it's a combo of the very wet year we've had, plus the plant's age, plus its position - it's too close to the wall; smushed up against it, in fact.

This looks terminal. Oh crap, I think it'll have to come out. Which means it'll have to come out before I put the ferns in, which means it'll have to come out today... pants.

The Procrastination Distraction

Sounds like a Big Bang Theory episode, but it's the job I do while I avoid ripping out the mouldy forsythia. It wasn't on the list, but I need some thinking time.

Years ago I did my 1st bit of paving, & put a fan of clay bricks under one of the benches. I really like them, they make me smile every time I see them, but bare soil substrate with soil mortar means, surprise surprise, it's forever covered in weeds. No worries: 10 minutes scraping with the sharp edge of the hand trowel soon cleans them up lovely.

Freshly scraped under-seat bricks

I'll re-lay them. At some point. Later. Not today.

Out with the old...

Mind cleared, decision made: the forsythia's coming out. To be honest, it's not all bad news as one of the brambles is embedded in the bugger, so I can get rid of that at the same time. So, out come all the surrounding weeds. Out too comes the Japanese holly fern, otherwise I'd just trample it when trying to get the shrub stump up.

Lifting the fern is weird though, cos underneath it is a collection of shredded plastic. I'm baffled - I definitely did not plant that under there. & then I twig: must've been a mouse nest. I know we have rodents in the garden, & I'll write more about that another time. But it also explains why the bulbs I'm unearthing looked half chewed...

Fern shifted, it was time to tackle the stump. For this, I needed reinforcements...

Time to call in the professionals

I chop off all the long branches with the loppers, as far back to the stump as the loppers' jaws can manage. I then dig out the soil from around the base, trying to determine where the crown of the plant stops & the roots start. I find a root & it's big -  maybe 20mm diameter. The loppers can handle this so I take out a section. I find another root: it's massive. At least twice the size of the 1st, maybe more. I try the hand axe on this & Christ it's hard work - I had no idea! I can tell the axe is really sharp cos it's shaving the fern on my right if my swing is a little too wild. But I'm getting really tired really quickly & if I'm not careful I'll end up with the axe in my leg. I need another plan.

The saw is great. I've used it before on the demon laurel hedge from hell. It's quite hard work, but I find it's nowhere near as bad as the axe. But the saw is long, & the surrounding soil level means I'll have to cut though the thickest bit of the stump.

After what feels like ages sawing, but is probably only 5 mins (why do I hold my breath when I do this sort of thing?), I'm reassessing my options again. Time to try brute force. It's a risky strategy - only this week a friend did her back badly when trying to yank out a bramble. But I'm really tired now so my judgement is suffering.

I put my foot on one of the thick stumps at the back, hang on to the wall for stability, & give it a push with my leg. To my amazement, it moves! It moves loads! This job is much further on than I thought. Fantastic! A few more shoves, & it's up:

Uprooted

...in with the new

Lovely new anemone for fern corner

After the ugliness of the mouldy root, the anemone is just beautiful. Even though I've neglected it since I bought it, it had continued to flower away in the gloomy corner. This all bodes well, cos let's face it it'll be just as neglected for the rest of it's life. Autumn glamour with no effort - my kind of plant.

So I've got the flowers & the ferns. This time I'm positioning them properly - place them, & then plant them same day. Finally.

Positioning in pots before planting

All done

Fern corner - all done

So in the pic above:

• Anemone: back left.
• Japanese holly fern: back right, over the top of where the forsythia was... hopefully that mould wasn't soil-borne...
• Shuttlecock fern: middle left.
• Front left & right: the other unidentified ferns from the variety pack.

But this wasn't the end. Oh no. Cos all the stuff I've ripped out is filling the wheelbarrow & spilling over into a huge pile in the middle of the lawn. Compostable bits go into the compost, woody bits onto the wood pile, leaving 4 bags of green waste for the bin guys.

& in the 30 mins it took to tidy up, I got extra rewards for all my endeavour:

Revelation

All this waste could be produce. The garden produces so much green stuff every year & I'll I do is worry about harbouring endemic weeds & so rip most of it up to chuck it away. But with a bit more effort, all this greenery could be tasty & in my belly.

Wonder

Whilst filling the garden waste sacks, I heard honking geese. I looked up & against the deepening blue of the dusk sky I saw a huge V of birds heading South. Then 5 minutes later, a second group came up the street, no more than 20 metres off the ground. Amazing. Finally, as I put away the tools & drew the door to, I saw the misty full Moon rise. Just beautiful.

Autumn's on its way...

I know you know this. The erratic plummets in temperature. The 48 hour rain. Having to put the heating on. The clues are there...

Our deciduous plants are on the turn, & most of them do it in a very drab, British way, with muted yellows & depressing browns. Truly the end of the Summer... I can feel the SAD kicking in as I type...

But the blueberries do that American Autumn scarlet thing. I love that they flag the change of the season so vigorously, so joyfully - "It's Autumn! Woohoo! Awesome! Awe-tumn!!"

What's your fave Awe-tumn plant?

Hedge scalping 1: Know thine enemy

We meet again, my old adversary...

An 8m long wall of privet & cherry laurel runs along the South West wall of the garden. It's great for privacy, for both us & the nesting birds who love it so much. But left to its own devices it would blot out the sun.

Like this, only so thick you can't see through it... (pic from www.springreachnursery.co.uk)

The hedge was big when we moved in & as it's on the bit of land the Council mow, we thought they'd clip it. We thunk wrong, & it grew & it grew & it grew... until it reached the gutters. It was time to take drastic action.

My hubby is a little phobic of the snips, convinced that pruning = killing. & with good reason - we've had a few disasters & near misses is the past ("oh, that rose is meant to be that tall...") But I was pretty confident the privet & laurel would bounce back after a haircut. I mean, I've seen some pretty brutal hatchet jobs inflicted on privet, but I've never seen a dead one.

As ever, my pruning schedule is entirely driven by when I can be arsed. That said, the hedge gets special considerations cos of its residents:

1. Have all the birds flown?
   Some of 'em raise two broods each year so it pays to let it slide a bit.
2. Is it too waspy?
   This isn't for their safety but for mine: atop a step ladder, with shears, feyly, frantically, wafting at jaspers...? yeah, I don't want to become just another ROSPA stat.

Cherry Laurel in flower (pic from www.sciencephoto.com)

I try to get the hedge done before the laurel's berries have ripened. I've wussed out a couple of years in the past & my punishment is laurel seedlings in other parts of the garden. Great. More invasive brutes. Just what I need.

In previous years I've done the big hedge hack completely by hand, with shears, loppers & saw. This too is why the job is mammoth: it takes two days of exhausting chopping, followed by several more to gather, dismember & dispose of the offcuts. I thought gardening was meant to be about genteel pottering; this is more akin to the ethnic cleansing of Rhododendrons off the face of Snowdon.

So the hedge stands there, glowering. If I do any other garden job when its trim is overdue, I get a nagging, guilty feeling... cos I should be cutting the hedge.

It mocks me.

Time, I think, for a new strategy...

(to be continued...)

Wasp rot?

Had a little potter yesterday:

• Mowed the lawn;
• Finished a bit path edging.

At the start of the Summer, the new paths were 95% finished; just the very last bits of edging to do. But.... I didn't actually get on & do it til just now... & I only did it just now cos I just blasted over the edging strip with the mower & shredded the soggy end.... oops. & it would appear that hubby has been carefully mowing around my unfinished edging all Summer... double oops :/

So, overdue jobs done & I'm packing up. I pick up my drink to find it has gained a swimmer: it's a wasp & this fella is not in good shape. Whilst his stroke is a standard vigorous 6 legged crawl, I can't help but notice he's a bit, erm, mouldy. He looks like he's got mildew on his back & thorax.

Everything in its right place

Now I'm not the biggest fan of wasps but, as Chris Packham pointed out in Saturday's Guardian Magazine, they have a job to do: they're insect predators & are part of the team that keep the aphids & grubs at bay around the garden.

A healthy Common Wasp (pic from Wiki)

But this year has been veeeery quiet on the waspy front. Normally we're regularly evicting them from the living room by now, but I can count on one hand how many I've seen this year. Very odd...

So what's going on? I wondered if the bonkers weather has been a factor: sooo much rain, & so little sun that two of my mates have been diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency :/

But could this mould be indicative of another problem? & is it related to the much discussed crash in the bee population?

Bio-hazards

A few Google searches dredge up nothing recent about wasp numbers - it's all about pest control & removing them from your roof... yep, guilty as charged: we had to do this last year cos we could hear them chewing away in the bathroom ceiling, & the last thing you need when you're busting is to open the door to a loo full of wasps...

Digging further, I did find a little something on diseases affecting wasps: a 2002 paper from Lincoln University in New Zealand talking about potential fungal controls on the influx of Common & German wasps that are causing problems in the ecosystems down there. They don't belong & they're getting out of hand.

I just wanna get along

They do belong here tho' - they have their place in the order: they predate stuff, stuff predates them, the balance is kept. However, given the public's anti-waspism, is it possible these fungal controls being used here in the UK? or had my swimmer just picked up one of these diseases in the natural course of going about it's waspy business? Just a normal part of what the Common wasp has to deal with here in the UK?

Dunno, but if the jaspers are struggling in the UK, along with the bees, maybe it's time to reassess our relationship with the little stripy guys.

Dig for Victory!

Watched The Wartime Farm last night & they mentioned the Dig For Victory leaflet. I knew about the poster, but not the pamphlet. Issued by the Ministry Of Agriculture, it provided a year round planting guide for British households during World War II.

Cool!

So could I get my hands on a copy? You bet your dibbler I could, thanks to the lovely folks at Quest For The Good Life. Plus they've taken the time to transcribe the info into calendar form - yay!

Int the Internet maaaaarvelous?! :D