Big Changes afoot

So I get to the garden last Friday morning and by the time I leave, the centre section has been remodelled. Now I know the levelling of the veg garden area was completed last week but this week we have a new semi circular bed mirroring the shape of the rosebed which is accessed through the boxus arch and the sloping area between the lupin wall and the cordon sweet peas has now been terraced to give a flat growing area in front of the lupins - more on that later.
Anyway, other than more weeding, I lifted the last of the leeks, sprayed off all the paths and all the as yet unplanted areas (the bottom section of the WF border, the rosebed, the area for the new fruit trees and the new semi circular bed mentioned earlier). I also sprayed the area round the edge of the cordon sweet pea bed and then proceeded to plant out the first three batches of young plants, so Gwendoline, Alan Titchmarsh and Orchid were planted out, with Vera Lynn, Tranquility and Jilly done this week after the arrival of the new 8ft bamboo canes. .
The sweet pea bed and the roesbed (which will be home to the Dahlias and Gladioli) have been given a feed with FB&B and will also get a top dressing of the same later in the season. On the subject of the dahlias, they have finally decided to get a shift on and are only now starting to throw up fresh shoots from their home on the greenhouse bed.
I have also put up supports round various plants, especially the campanulas againt the wall as these will reach 5 - 6 ft at flowering so really need to be held against the wall. Last year I was late putting in plant supports but hopefully this year, the supports will do their job and will be hidden as the plant grows.
Generally speaking everything is growing away strongly, we have buds on the oriental poppies, peonies and the tulips are just starting to flower, so it's getting there.
Anyway here a re a few photos showing what has been happening over the last fortnight.

Site of new veg garden

 

 

And again

 

looking up to raised bed in front of box arch

And again

 

Terracing the slope in front of lupin wall - for lots and lots of sweet peas next year

 

And the borders on Friday.

 

And finally, it only remains for me to congratulate Jen and Hamish on their engagement, and now I have to figure out how I am going to have sweet peas in full bloom for the end of June next year - not easy this far north but we'll have them.

 

 

 

May - and still it snows !

Well, not snow exactly but definitely sleet - and a lot of rain and cold cold winds. However, time is marching on, so I started by going down to the greenhouse and watering everything, then sowing some veg (cabbage, caulies, PSB, lettuce, leeks and spring onions) , two pots of Alyssum " Caopet of Snow" and about 70 white Cosmos "Purity" - these last will be added to the 50 or so that I potted on last week.
Sally has been buying some young perennials again so I also came across 18 mixed delphiniums, 6 trailing fuschias ( a freebie with her latest purchase which are coming home with me next week), 6 sea hollies "Blue Star", 6 Heliopsis "Summer Sun and 3 Anemone H. Jobert.
Add to the above the dahlia tubers, blackcurrant canes, phlox, sweet peas, and the greenhouse is filling up again.
After sorting everything out in the greenhouse, I weeded the bank by the steps down to said greenhouse - this is home to Mullein, Perovskia, Japanese Quince, Aquilegia, Alchemilla mollis and a couple of young buddleia,
I also planted out 3 Echinops in the lower of the two herbaceous borders. Things are still greening up but there are buds appearing on the peonies and most of the daffies are open now, so here is a pic of the borders for this week

Now, there was a bit of a misunderstanding as to how the digger was to set out the area for the new veg garden and things have changed as a result, but the area is now cleared and ready for paths etc to be marked out, though there is no real rush as it doesn't need to be finished until late on this year, so that I can get all the beds filled etc ready for the 2014 growing season. So here is a pic of the area, cleared of stumps and scraped back to a level that we are happy with.

There are more groundworks that have been undertaken this week and I'll update you all on these after I've been back to the garden on Friday.
Other than tying in the first row of sweet pea canes and helping Richard and Sally mark out levels for the digger for this week, that's about it.
Back next weekend.

End of April

So much for it warming up - it is still cold and wet and Friday saw several heavy showers of hailstones in the garden. On the plus side, things are starting to green up and we have a semi decent amount of daffies in flower in the herbaceous borders.
Along with everything else greening up, there has been the usual explosion of weeds and so the weeding continues apace - this weeks main efforts being focussed on the top of the west facing border which is now home to the 130 or so onions that were started of from sets in cell packs in the greenhouse, another session on the cordon sweet pea bed and one of the beds by the summerhouse.
I'm sure that I failed to mention that I have now planted out 5 x tree peonies that were started from seed two years ago - I do hope they flourish as it would be a shame to lose them after waiting for so long!
BIG NEWS!! The work has started proper on the creation if the vegetable garden. Alan arrived with his track digger on Friday and spent the morning digging out stumps and the old cotoneaster hedge from the allotted area. And after marking out roughly where the edges of the veg plot will be, he started work on terracing the area. There will be three levels, each with three beds and the centre bed on the middle level will have Tim's apple tree as a centrepoint. However, this meant Alan digging up the apple tree which was done with as large a rootball as possible and placing it to one side whilst he worked on the terracing. There is a lot of willowherb and ground elder in this area but hopefully the digger's work will kill off a lot of this.
I am really looking forward to seeing the garden on Friday as the terracing work had just got underway when I was finishing up for the day. Expect a few pics of this next week !!
What else has been happening - Sally has grown some Cosmos "Purity" from seed and these are now all potted up into individual 3" pots, all 56 of them,  and will be planted out en masse in the lower of the two long borders when they are ready.
I sorted through the dahlia tubers as well - we lost three over the winter but all the remaining ones are now snug and planted up in the larger greenhouse bed to get them underway.
So as per usual, here is a pic of the borders this week...........

Warming up now

A glorious day on Friday which hopefully is the start of a longer spell of warmer weather!
So first off , apologies for not updating this for a wee while but there hasn't really been too much to report of interest - weeding isn't exactly top of the "lets see that" list!
However it is a necessity and I have now weeded both herbaceous borders, the west facing border, the fruit bed (incorporating this years tattie ground), the dahlia bed, both beds either side of the summerhouse and the long bed for the sweet peas and gladioli.
I have started chitting the gladioli and have erected the first row of 50 x 8ft canes for the cordon sweet peas, which have now all had their growing tips nipped off to encourage side shoots. At planting out time, the strongest sideshoot will be the one that is trained up the canes and any others will be removed - this is done as it is common for the main shoot on sweet peas to go "blind" and not produce any blooms.
The tatties are chitting away in the house and will be ready for planting out just as soon as the soil has warmed up a bit.
The borders are starting to show signs of life and have had a few additions planted out - some pinks, and astilbes which came from some of my other gardens and were surplus to requirements. as well as some Campanula carpatica in the beds by the summerhouse which came from a neighbour of mine.
The daffs are beginning to open (finally) so hopefully we should start to get a bit of a decent show next week.
Elsewhere, I have started off 8 dahlia tubers in the greenhouse - these are the only ones we will be taking cuttings from this year, the remainder will be planted out direct in the Dahlia bed (the old rosebed by the summerhouse).

Anyways, here is a pic of the borders from April 12th last year......

 

And hers is one taken on Friday............

 

 

Considerably less greenery in the one taken this year!!.But with the arrival of warmer air from the South, things should hopefully get a move on now.

We now have a new door to the garden - the old one was a bit past it.....

 

 

So Matthew made a lovely new door which looks really good - though I think I have to agree with Matthew when he says that although the colour is called "Woodland Green", it looks more like John Deere Green !

 

 

And finally, the digger should be arriving in a fortnight to start clearing up the area of the proposed vegetable garden - much excitement on my part as veg are my passion !! So hopefully it won't be like this for much longer......

 

 

 

 

 

Still no daffies!

Well, the Alness Spring Show has been and gone and in the garden, there is still not a daffodil in bloom - which is a real shame as I was hoping to enter 5 of the old fashioned original daffs. Never mind there's always next year. They are about a fortnight later than usual this year, so hopefully we'll get a show soon, as the snowdops were a fortnight later this year too. With this in mind I might actually lift some after flowering and force them on in the greenhouse for next years show.
Spent most of the day weeding and tidying up the top border -more or less a full day, which is less time than last year and much much more than the year before - in fact the actual weeds are not the problem, it's the removal of the weeds without damaging any of the bulbs or plants in the border that makes it so slow.
So there you have it - nothing too exciting - the most exciting thing about the day was the discovery of a newt in the border!

Winter has returned

Friday this week wasn't too bad weather wise but it was definitely colder (and since then we have had more snow and plummeting temperatures at night)
I began by cuting away all the old foliage from the Hellebores to give their blooms the chance to shine - I can only hope they haven't succumbed to the sudden temperature drop.
Still no daffs in flower - which is a shame - I hope we have some by Friday 15th as there is a local Spring Bulb show on Saturday 16th - I'd really like to take a vase of the old original daffs that proliferate in the bottom section of the garden as I really like them....

 

After tidying up the Hellebores, I got the wheelbarrow out and trundled 14 barrows of well rotted muck onto the potato patch - ideally this should have been done in the back end of 2012 but as we didn't know what areas of the garden were going to be available for this years veg, it had to wait.

After this I planted out the strawberry runners that have been growing on in the greenhouse. These had been placed outside about a month ago - strawberry plants benefit from a cold spell, so planting them out now does no harm and frees up more time for when things start getting hectic in April.

To finish the day, I started into clearing up the herbaceous borders -a seemingly endless task "

That's it for this week..............

First Day of March

And still not a daffodil in flower ! We all thought that with the mild winter we had up here, things would be early on the go in the garden but for some reason, the oppposite seems to be true with only the snowdrops and a handful of crocus in flower - there are signs of life but not too many.
Anyway, this week was spent applying a winter wash to all the fruit trees - something I meant to do before now but forgot!.
And the Mantis was brought out the potting shed and put to work, rotovating the rosebed (where all the dahlias will be going)

followed by the cordon sweet pea bed (where the veg was last year)

 and the area of the fruit bed that was under black polythene all winter (where this years potatoes will be going.

The rest of the day was spent clearing up branches and setting light to one of the last remaining burn piles in what will be the vegetable garden - only one left now, but it's a biggie !

And to finish on a bright note - a pretty little hellebore!