Nice day to to finish the month

A really beautiful day - warm, with warm wind to help too, but first off I'd like to say I'm glad Sally is on the mend.
On my arrival this morning, I found some blister packs containing some perennial plugs sitting on the bench of the potting shed, so my first job of the day was to pot these up into 3" pots. There were 18 x Campanula pyramidalus which when they grow up should look similar to this.....

Then there were 10 x Echinacea purpurea White Swan which should look like this...

There were also another 6 of the purple Echinacea purpurea. After potting these up they were all delivered down to the greenhouse which is beginning to fill up with perennials for the long borders, most of which are beginning to show signs of growth and will be ready to plant out in April. So at the moment the greenhouse staging looks like this......

The sweet peas sown a fortnight ago have started to germinate too.
After potting these up, I weeded the small bed adjacent to the old summerhouse which is being filled with various bulbs.......

And after this, I returned to weeding the long borders as per previous entries. There are a few plants in flower or close to it at the moment, including the Pulmonaria and Hellebores.......

Most of the perennials are now beginning to push up fresh seasons growth so things are progressing steadily, though I am itching for the daffies to bloom as they look really good in the borders and are a sure sign of better weather arriving.

Anyway here is this weeks photo from the potting shed......

Richard and Sally came down in the afternoon with a present for me - the 4 stroke Mantis Tiller  :-) 

so that will be assembled and given a test ride next week. We discussed the proposed siting of the Strawberry Bed and we look to have settled on the west facing border for at least the next two or three years, when, as well as cropping, we will be looking to increase our stock by cultivating the runners produced. And finally, myself and Sally had a discussion over a nice cuppa about what veg to grow this year, so without boring you with specific varieties, here, in no particular order, is what we have planned.

Potatoes, Onions, Carrots, Leeks, Salad Leaves, PSB, Sweetheart Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts, Kale, Cauliflower, Perpetual Spinach, Tomatoes, Parsnips, Beetroot, French Bean, Runner Bean, Spring Greens.

Thats it for this week, see ya next week.

Not a lot to report

The camera saga continues - batteries got fried in the charger so yet again no piccies this week, though to be honest, there's not a lot to see from today anyway. Things are (very) slowly beginning to break into new growth, but you have to look hard to see it. Spent almost the whole day hand weeding more of the borders, including thinning out the red hot pokers.
The perennials in the greenhouse are sending out new growth and the sweet pea seeds sown last week have started to put down roots - how do I know - cos half of them are pushing up through the layer of compost covering them!
Sally has been pretty poorly this last few days soI'd like to wish her a speedy recovery from her viral infection and that's about it - off to buy some new rechargeable batteries tomorrow !

Takin' it Easy

After putting my back out and being barely able to walk out the forest on Monday, thisTuesday at Scotsburn was a day for the lighter jobs.
So, when Sally appeared with the sweet pea seeds, I brought the compost - 2 x 25 litre John Innes Seed Sowing Compost and 1 x 120 litre Multi-Purpose - down to the garden and started sowing the sweet peas

These are all from Unwins and three of these varieties will be grown as cordons with a view to to exhibiting the blooms, with the remaining blend being grown up cane wigwams in the borders.

The varieties should look like the following photos;

Sweet Pea Daphne

Sweet Pea Royal Wedding

Sweet Pea Pink Pearl

And for the borders, Flowers Arrangers Blend of Sweet Peas

The seeds were all sown  in 3" pots, 3 seeds per pot of John Innes Seed Compost which worked out well as there were 21 of each of the show varieties and 54 of the Blend so every pot has 3 seeds.

All these plus another 30 sweet pea seeds (Fragrantissima from T&M) are now resident in the greenhouse.

After this was done, I got on my hands and knees for the rest of the day and started hand weeding the lower of the two long borders - removing ;ots of young willowherb and creeping buttercup and a few baby docks too. I also put up the first Sweet Pea wigwam after I had weeded past the area it is now situated.

Slly also intinmated that she would be ordering a new toy for the garden that day - a 4 stroke Mantis Deluxe Tiller, so I'm looking forward to that arriving - hopefully the ground will be slightly more workable by then than it is currently

That's about it for this week, all that's left is this week's view from the potting shed

A Lovely Crisp Day

Well, for a change it seems that we are having the best of the weather up here. Whilst our friends in England-shire are battling with snow, we have a heavy frost each morning followed by clear blue skies and sunshine. And to prove I'm not making this uop, here is the view from the potting shed this morning

So today was a non starter for doing more weeding or digging as the ground was frozen yet again, so I started the day by pruning back a climbing rose that is partially obscured by the Garrya tree by the summerhouse. Then I pruned all the pear trees along the wall of the fruit bed - this entailed not only pruning from ground level but then using my pole pruners and finally climbing a ladder up onto the top of the wall and inching my way along it, pruning as I went - I should add that the top of the wall is not flat - that would be too easy, no it has a slope of anywhere from 45 to 60 degrees and as the sun doesn't hit the sloped surface at this time of year, it was as slipery as a slippy snake from Slippy Town.
Anyway, job done!
Then I checked on the greenhouse -all the perennials bar two rudbeckia seem to be in fine health. I cleared away any rubbish and pulled out two perennial spinsch plants that had gone over - the chard still looks to be producing though.....

I then barrowd some FYM from the ther end of the garden and spread it on the larger of the greenhouse beds - this will be incorporated in due course....

Had a quick chat with Sally about growing sweet peas on the cordon system for this year and also about the forthcoming purchase of a 4 stroke Mantis - apparently there are two 4 stroke versions so the company are senfing up some bumph on the two versions available.
Then it was back to a general tidy up, clearing leaves and cutting back the various clumps of Hypericum.
The bulbs are increasing in number weekly and I'm looking forward to a good show starting next month.
I hope to get a rough plan done this week and will post it as soon as I get a chance.
That's about it for this week. After I left, I went to see another walled garden I am starting at on Friday coming, that is in the same or worse state than this garden was - see my other blog for pictures of this

to be posted over the weekend.

Last Post of January

Today is 31st January -Jen's 24th Birthday - Happy Birthday Jen - and co-incidentally,  my daughter Niamh's 4th birthday too.
Anyway, today was quite a nice day, cold but sunny and I got quite a bit done today that the weather has been delaying.
I started by emptying my knapsack sprayer, washing it out thoroughly and then refilling with Vitax Winter Wash

This was then sprayed onto the fruit trees n the garden - 2 x Cherry, 8 x Pear, 11 x Apple and 4 x Plum. I also gave the currant bushes a spray. The trees were all sprayed with winter wash last year and it did make a difference to their health, so hopefully they will continue to improve again this year.

After this, I returned to the border along the west facing wall. This was home to the veg last year - a permanent use is still to be decided on  but possibly a cutting bed for flowers for the house.

I had started to dig this over but then the soil got too wet and claggy so it was left to dry out. And with it being so mild, it wasn't long before the weeds began to take over. However, today I finished digging it over, pulling the weeds as I went - 2 wheelbarrow loads (including some branches that I removed from the ornamental quince nearest the potting shed). So that's that border done, ready for whatever we decide to plant up in it this year.

There are three Rhubarb Crowns right at the top of this border and I think we are going to try and procure some plastic dustbins to force a couple of these this year, but we'll need to be quick as the buds will be breaking out pretty soon.

After that I thought I'd better weed round the hundreds of daffodil bulbs in the top long border as Once the bulbs are up a bit, the weeds will be impossible to get to, so I spent a couple of hours on my hands and knees extracting a variety of weeds whilst trying not to damage any of the bulb shoots.

And finally I finished the day off by starting to weed and tidy the small borders in front of the house, the plan being to finish this next week and plant out the 30 or so primulas that are currently resident in the greenhouse. So that's about it for this week - I'll finish with a pic of the view from the potting shed, though no real difference from the last one !!

Catch you later....................

January overview

Well, now that I have reverted to taking the compact digital camera as opposed to the SLR digital camera, I should be able to keep you all supplied with plenty of photos from now on.
As per, here is the view from the potting shed this morning

Not terribly exciting at this time of year I know but hey ho, things should start to perk up in about a month or so, especially if it stays mild. The ground was still very wet and sticky today so it was back to clearing the cotoneaster hedge.

Before

During

After

The original line of the hedge can be seen on the right of the photo. The "new hedge" on the left is where the original (and seriously overgrown) hedge leaned over and touched the ground putting down fresh roots ! The two lines are about 4ft apart. There are quite a few gaps in the original hedge so the new growth shall be dug up and transplanted to help fill the gaps. The green growth on the right of the original hedge is the row of cut material waiting to be burned.

The cutting back of this hedge also revealed two large fallen trees, which I have now logged.

The garden, being so large, it is probably quite difficult for anyone reading this to try and understand whare I am talking about and I will get round to doing a plan at some point this year but in the meantime, I clambered onto the roog of the potting shed today and took a couple of pics so that you can have idea of the scale of the place.

The pic above shows the two long borders (each approx 40m in length and 4m deep). At the far end of this you can just see the summerhouse (beyond which is the fruit bed) and  to the left of this is the old rosebed and to the left of this again is the box archway which is Richard's preserve.

In this photo you can see the corner of the west facing bed, the lower of the two long borders, and some of the middle section of the garden. The lower part of this middle section will be home to the veg patch for this year at least and what is to be done with the remaining sloped area above the veg patch  has yet to be decided. Below this is the greenhouse and another large area of garden - this could quite possibly be turned into a formal orchard area but that is well into the future.

The project for the this year (over and above looking after and maintaining what is already done) is to reclaim that section of the garden beyond the summerhouse and below the fruit bed. This area is enclosed on one side by the beech hedge and on the other by the cotoneaster hedge. The plan is that eventually this will be the veg area of the garden but as you can see from the pic below, it needs a lot of work.

In the greenhouse the various perennials that are in pots are starting to produce fresh growth and all look to have survived, so come the Spring proper, we shoud have quite a few new plants to help fill out the long borders.

The old rosebed has been given a generous application of FYM and will be home to the dahlias

That's all for this week. When the long borders start to take off I think I'll try and take the photos from the roof of the potting shed as opposed to inside the potting shed as you will get a much better idea of what's happeing where. Bye for now

Beautiful winters day

Today was a cracker - sun, blue skies, no wind. I woke up to find that most of the hard white frostof the last two days had vanished but the ground was still rock hard, so my plan to get up to Scotsburn and plant up the thirty or so primulas in the small borders in front of the big house was thwarted, as was the digging over of the rest of last years veg bed.

So it was back to cutting back the beech hedge on the top side but as I have reached the point where the cotoneaster hedge meets it at right angles, I set about it instead. This hedge is severely overgrown and has sprawled to a width of about 6ft and a height of about 7 - 8ft. So I have set about it with a petrol hedgetrimmer, a chainsaw and some heavy duty loppers and have so far cut about a third of it's length back to about 4ft high and in so doing reducing the width to about 2ft. Running up the middle of the hedge is an old fence, complete with chicken wire but the hedge had grown over through and under this fence so it may have to stay in situ, My hope is that by cutting it back severely, it will encourage new growth from lower down and the hedge can be saved, but if not the whole lot will be ripped out and the hedge replanted.

That's about it really -pruned one of the small apple trees as I was passing and lifted a row of leeks for Sally.

Camera woes continue so only one photo this week - the view from the potting shed. I put fresh batteries in the camera this morning before I left the house, amd they went flat after two pics!! - so I'll change cameras as I need to start getting some piccies of what I'm doing!

See ya next week