End of month view: January

So here we are then, at the turn of another year; and so I took a look back at what things were like this time last year (one of the many benefits of following the End of Month View meme kindly hosted by Helen at The Patient Gardener).

This may become an annual event: I see that last year, the first time I did this, I was also comparing and contrasting, though on that occasion I was monitoring change over a mere three or four months; this time it's a whole year's worth.

I had thought I'd hardly achieved anything during the year - the frustration of competing and always, it seems, more urgent claims from small children, animals, work and the running of a somewhat chaotic household.

But from comparing these photos I discover things have actually, in some bits of the garden at least, changed quite a lot.

They say the longest journeys start with a single step. Perhaps I should just stop beating myself up about how little progress I've made towards the dream garden in my head; and start celebrating the fact that I've made any progress at all. Because as long as you make just a little progress every day, before you know it you've changed your little corner of the world more than you ever thought possible.

And besides, just think what I could achieve by January 2013!

The Vegetable Garden:

This time last year it looked like this...

And now....

Actually I'm rather regretting having taken this picture so far back: the shot I took last year is taken standing just behind the far tree in this picture. I cannot believe that just a year ago I was looking at bare ground here.

In just a single year I have dug over all that scrubby-looking grass and turned it into an incredibly productive vegetable patch that has fed my family almost completely: I have only had to start buying veg from the shops this month for the first time since last March, and that's only because I didn't get around to planting my kale out early enough.

The patch of black-polythene-covered veg patch you can see in the distance (the whole of the 2011 picture) is about 80ft of veg garden; the grassy bit in the foreground is the bit I'm going to expand into this year, I hope. I've just got a greenhouse to move, then I can start the same old routine of cutting back hedges, putting in rabbit fencing and opening up the ground. Can't wait.

The Fruit Garden:

In 2011:

 ..and now:

Not a lot of change here, then, apart from a lot more grass (and some optimistic scaffold boards). But there is much planning afoot in the background and I'm just about to start work on this bit too: in fact this week should see me cutting back those hedges and covering the grass with black plastic ahead of a serious bit of fruit cage construction and path layout. If you want to know the details: there's more on t'other blog.

The Herb Garden:

in 2011:

and now:

This is one of the areas I've been working really hard on, though there's not anything too spectacular to show for it yet: I find when you're developing gardens that things tend to get a whole lot worse before they start looking better.

This rocky bed is slowly being transformed into a herb garden, and this year it's been comprehensively cleared. I've dug out two out of the three grandma roses planted incongruously and entirely pointlessly in the middle of the equally pointless lawn at the top of the slope: this lawn also has its days numbered, as in April I'm planning on replacing it with chamomile.

The big hairy fuchsia bush in the top picture is long gone, as are about four large stumps (crowbar and fencer's graft and a lot of sweat) a skip load of Anemone x japonica 'Honorine Jobert' (sounds like vandalism but, believe me, this was invasive beyond the call of duty - and besides, I've kept one small clump at the far end for digging up and moving somewhere it can be better behaved).

So all in all the whole thing looks a great deal tidier, if rather empty at the moment. But I am stewing up the plant order to end all plant orders this spring as I will be packing this space with every kind of herb you can think of: hundreds of them, in the most wonderful planting fest. It's going to make my year.

The Pot-Pourri Garden:

in 2011:

and now:

This is another area that has required an awful lot of clearing before I can do anything with it. I've still only got around halfway around the circle - around as far as that big bush in the background (it's a Philadelphus and I am in a dilemma about it: it looks rather lovely in the summer as it's an 'Aureus' with pretty golden foliage, but appearances are deceptive as it's previously outgrown its welcome at some stage and been hacked down to a stump which has then regrown. It looks very, very ugly at this time of year and I can't help wanting it out: but it's so nice in the summer.... ack. Cannot decide.)

This bit was actually one of the nicest areas of the garden last summer as I filled it with annuals - cosmos, nicotiana and marigolds mostly - so it was exuberant with colour. Now it's filling up with bulbs: I have planted half of my 200 tulips in here, although rather worryingly there's no sign of them yet and I'm fretting about mouse attack. We'll find out in a month or two, I suppose....



The Tropical Garden:

in 2011:

and now:

Still feeling a bit of a fraud (and slightly silly) calling this a tropical garden as it looks anything but tropical in January frosts. But though you can't quite make it out unless you know what you're looking at, there's a small loquat tree establishing itself in front of the bank, and a Pawlonia getting its feet down a little further along.

There are also major earthworks going on here: I've dug out the border in front of the path, partly so I could plant the other half of my 200 tulip bulbs and partly so I had somewhere to put all the wonderful things I want to grow here this year. I have gingers and yacon and lots and lots of taro root (that's Colocasia esculenta to you, mate) as well as non-edibles like Geranium maderense and cycads. I'm also going to experiment here with growing large-leaved things that aren't really tropical but look it: so we're talking squashes and courgettes and pumpkins and rhubarb. And maybe some Cavolo Nero kale.

Another area where the plans are racing ahead of the actual work, then....

The Hill:

in 2011:

and now:

The one bit of the garden that's looking, if anything, scruffier than it did last year (though can you see how well the snowdrops have spread? Nothing to do with me, honest guv).

Not so much as a slight shuffle towards the nuttery I hope this will become one day. It's the far end of the garden, so I reckon will probably be the last to get the treatment. In my defence, though, I have been doing a lot of work on the hedge, or rather the hazels perched precariously on top of the vertiginous bank here (as was I, pruning saw in hand, while hacking away at them):

Just to give you an idea of how high this is, my head reaches up to that first patch of leaves on the right.

The grass has carried on growing on the hill right through autumn into early winter thanks to all that warm weather, and it's been so wet we haven't got the mower anywhere near it. So in a sudden flash of inspiration brought on by my dilemma over what to do about my sheep who have run out of grass in the field where they're currently living, I put the two together and have decided that this is going to become a sheep paddock for the next month or two.

Sheep = mobile lawnmowers = job done. Plus I get well-fed sheep and a lot of natural fertiliser too. I may have to fence off those snowdrops though...

The Friday photo

It has been snowing. In November.


Not much, especially if you're reading this in Scotland or Northumbria - but enough to make footprints in the road and spangle the cobwebs in the hedgerows with suspended spray.

This is continuing for the next ten days, so they say: and it's the first time since 1993 it's snowed this early. At this rate we will lose all concept of what a 'normal' winter might be: can you remember the last one?

Roses in November

When the Irish poet Thomas Moore went on in a lamenting sort of way about 'the last rose of summer' it was 1805 and I'd guess he wasn't looking at routine double-figure temperatures in November.

There is no last rose of summer any more. There might be a last rose of late winter at some point, I suppose, but this is, these days, a late summer or autumn flower. If not a winter one.

Certainly here it is, November tomorrow, and my garden is full of roses.


An unidentified miniature patio rose growing in the kids' garden.

Rosa 'Perpetually Yours'

A budding Rosa 'Dublin Bay'

Lots of buds on my container-grown Rosa 'Wildeve'

and the Rosa 'New Dawn' on the front of the house is flowering its heart out still.
I just can't make my mind up if I like it.

I love that my garden is full of roses: who couldn't like that? But they look all wrong among the autumn leaves somehow.

And can you imagine having roses on the table for Christmas dinner?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

It's no good - I can't resist. Gotta show you my snow pictures.

Wisley up the road recorded 12" last night, and I think we're up to about 16-18" now. It's the most snow we've had in 18 years (which explains, to you Yanks who regularly hit the two-metre line, why we're getting so excited about it).

All the cardoon seedheads are wearing white bearskins.

Underneath here somewhere are my patio pots.

And Bob (our resident Roman Emperor) is wearing some very natty headgear.

The pond has stayed clear - just.

And as you can see, it's still snowing. Hard. Allotment Dog is not impressed, though he does keep trying to eat it (just in case, you understand) and has a good line in snow somersaults.

The great thaw begins

Walking down the garden drops of melted hoarfrost are falling from the trees, and for the first time in three weeks, there is water on my pond.


It's still three-quarters frozen, and all pond-life is suspended just beneath the surface like a snapshot of the moment before the cold snap began: this water soldier (Stratiodes aloides) is meant to have sunk to the bottom for its winter sleep but it obviously didn't get away in time.


My pond is a little shallow so I'm hoping all the newts are still OK in there.

I may be getting optimistic here but who knows - I may even get gardening again soon!

Winter wishlist

The moment has come - I'm going to have to opt out of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for this month.

This is because there are actually no blooms in my garden. Well all right, that's a bit of an exaggeration as the winter pansies are still struggling through, and the heliotrope in the greenhouse is in exactly the same state as when I put it in there in October. The pyracantha berries are still looking great, but that was kind of cheating last month anyway. Otherwise - zilch. Nada. Rien. Even the leycesteria which has been soldiering on right through since June has finally dropped its leaves and gone to sleep. To be honest I feel like joining it. I don't do houseplants (they take one look at me and die) so no joy there either.

So I thought I'd cheat. Here are the blooms I would like in my garden this month:

Clematis cirrhosa var. balearica 'Wisley Cream'

Garrya elliptica

Chimonanthes praecox (I do actually have this at the end of the garden but it's extremely shy to flower, so this isn't so much one to buy as one to cast a spell on)

Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata' (just)

Coronilla valentina subs. glauca 'Citrina'

No pictures, of course, as these are the flowers that are not blooming in my garden today.

I'll stop at five for now, though I'm sure everyone else has suggestions here. But let this be my lesson for 2008: by this time next year there will be no excuses!

Dead plants

At this time of year it's a blessing that some plants continue to look good even after they've turned up their toes. You have to experiment - I find a lot of the plants supposed to hold on to their seedheads, like Rudbeckia, Echinops and many grasses, actually collapse sideways into a soggy heap around November, which hardly counts as winter these days. But when you find the ones that work, they really are worth their weight in gold (which is the colour many of them are on a frosty winter's day, too).

Spiky seedheads of Cynara cardunculus towering overhead against a December sky.

Verbena bonariensis is one of the best for looking good all winter - as long as the bluetits don't tear the seedheads to bits first.

Perovskia 'Blue Spire' puts up a forest of ghostly silver stems.

And of course poppy heads: many of these do collapse sideways but there are always a few left standing. I wonder what critter chomped its way through the side of this one looking for seeds?

November flowers

This month's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted as ever by May Dreams - thank you!) served as a wake-up call for me. All my flowers were hanger-ons from summer... and nearly the only proper winter colour I have is from berries, which are lovely so I've cheated a little, but I really must improve things next year. I feel some Christmas box, or maybe a Daphne or two, coming on...

The start of the new year

So many people just abandon their allotments at this time of year and just turn up again in the spring (most likely to a patch of rampant weeds which it'll then take them another couple of months to get going again).

Surprise, surprise, I'm not one of them. I'll confess to missing the odd day when it's really tipping down with rain, though even then I sometimes have a mung around in the greenhouse. And there are some weeks around January time when I'm reduced to sitting at home grinding my teeth because the ground is just too soggy and horrible to do anything with, so I have to give up and stay off it.

This week I've been starting off my new season - my fifth year on the allotment, and it's just getting better and better. You learn a new thing with each year that passes, and just fine-tune what you do until you get it right. This year my big learning curve has been the broad beans, which almost totally failed in spring because I sowed them indoors in November and then planted them out in January as strong, but overly tall-stemmed specimens without protection. Result - the whole lot were wiped out by a combination of wickedly bad weather and stem rots. Actually, I say the whole lot, but several re-sprouted once the weather improved, giving me a fairly measly crop but a crop nonetheless. These really are tough plants.

Anyway: this year I'm experimenting with sowing in the ground, but under cover of polythene cloches. I used to avoid sowing direct, as everything just got eaten straight away, but since the mice are having a hard time even getting out of bed thanks to my ever-vigilant pussycats, I've felt able to risk it this time. The result ought to be sturdier plants, more able to cope with being outside all winter, and a thumping great glut of broad beans (which thankfully freeze beautifully) come May. Can't wait.

PS: that's my trusty allotment dog appearing in the background, mooching around looking for smelly things to eat. Am considering setting up a rebel Gardening Dog movement to counter the army of rabid cat-lovers around here. Or perhaps a Gardening Chickens movement, for which I am similarly well-armed with pictures with which to bore you rigid.

And so to bed

After all that snow last month, with accompanying panic involving yards of horticultural fleece and bubble-wrap, I finally got round to doing the job properly.

My poor banana plant...

I hope to goodness I'm doing this right. This year was the first time I've ever grown bananas, and I've become completely hooked - something about watching them grow by about a foot a day - but this is a bit nerve-wracking. I looked it all up, and they say you have to chop off all the leaves and put it somewhere frost-free. I've potted it up in a 50:50 mix of compost and sand, which should take care of the drainage, but oh it looks so miserable. To say nothing of that worrying list to the top spike. I think I may have removed one too many leaves. Well - it'll live or it'll die, I suppose.

More straightforward was the Musa basjoo by the pond. When you chop the leaves off this one, you don't have to look at it as you immediately cover it in lots of straw, so you can kid yourself it's all cosy and warm in there. I've used an old bit of green plastic fencing to hold it all in place, and that plastic on the top is a bit of bubble wrap just to keep the worst of the rain off and stop it all rotting. I'll also be wrapping a couple of layers of fleece round the whole thing, partly as insurance, partly because it'll look marginally better if I do.

I hear of lots of tales of Musa being left outside all winter long these days with never a setback, but since we're not really within the London microclimate here and this is only a one-year-old plant, I thought I'd best not risk it. One day I'll have a 20-ft monster which I'll be only too pleased to have cut down by the frost - but not just yet.

Frosty morning

I know frost is meant to be the gardener's enemy. I, like no doubt many others in the vicinity, spent much of yesterday running around frantically squirrelling things away in my greenhouse as the weather forecast got gloomier and gloomier. This morning, I still found I had several casualties when I woke up to find it went down to minus 2 or so. But oh... it was so beautiful.


This was one of my casualties - the Nicandra physaloides, now reduced to a sodden mess in the corner. But didn't it look lovely as it died.

I thought this Goliath poppy was being a bit optimistic, producing flower heads this late in the season!

Verbena bonariensis is, I often think, at its best after a good frost.

The frost melted pretty quickly but even that sent me into rhapsodies - this is Melianthus major which holds onto the droplets like jewels. The little spider was up early, too.

Another one that's looking good as the frost melts off it - this is Eucalyptus gunnii, kept coppiced for that glaucous, rounded young foliage.

And even the nettles were pretty. It doesn't get much better than that.

Disappearing under water

As I write, I'm listening to the sound of a gale howling around my house and the rain splattering the windows with a viciousness which makes you realise why they talk about nasty weather. I've just had to cancel my third garden this week - and that's after last week when I only made it to one of my clients and was washed out for the rest.

There's nothing more depressing than being forced to stay indoors when you don't want to. There's not even anything very nice to look at outside: the path around the greenhouse I've been digging in my garden (of which, hopefully, more later) is now a stream, and when I walked down the garden to let the chickens out I was splashing through the film of water that now covers the lawn. The water table is as high as it's ever been in my normally dry and sandy conditions, and even if it were sunny you'd have to bail out a hole before you could dig it.

I'm sorry - I do try to be optimistic on the whole - but January is, by far, the worst month of the year.

Back to work

At last - the sun is shining, the frost has stopped (for the time being at least) and I can get outside again. I realised this morning that what with a combination of bad weather and Christmas, I only gardened one week in December... that must be some sort of record for me.

One thing I did do in my own garden - which didn't require treading on the frosted grass, which at one point didn't defrost for five days in a row - was to sort out my willow tree. This is the goat willow (Salix caprea) that's by my pond - you can see another picture of it covered rather fetchingly in snow here. You might be able to see from the earlier picture that it was overhanging the fence quite considerably - well on the other side of the fence happens to be my cut flower garden, so it was quite urgent that I take out the overhanging branches and let in a bit more light.

The depths of winter are a great time for pruning trees - you can really see what you're doing, and create a good, balanced outline. You can also get a good look at the general health of the branches, and those which are crossing other branches or generally growing in the wrong direction become very obvious when they're not hidden by leaves. In this case, I aimed for quite a tall, upright shape which was well-balanced but didn't cast too wide a shadow.

When pruning trees, you need to take care not to cut too close to the trunk. If you look at where a side branch leaves the main branch or trunk, you'll see there's an obvious junction. This is called the collar - it appears as a slight swelling between trunk and branch. You should cut on the branch side of the collar - not through it, or on the other side of it, as it contains lots of good hormones which promote the rapid healing of the wound. You can see where I've done this on the big cut facing you in the picture.

It's a good idea too to cut quite close to the collar, as if you leave too much of the branch on the tree, it'll die back and could rot and let in disease - I could have cut fractionally closer here, in fact, and it's not always easy to get it absolutely right. One tip is to cut away the branch little by little, from the far end back towards the trunk, so you get several chances to cut it to exactly the right point.

First frost of the year

We had the first really hard frost of the year last night - down to minus 7 degrees, which is pretty low for any time of the year in this part of the world. We've had a couple of minor ground frosts in the last few weeks, but this one has really sent temperatures plummeting.

I love frosty nights, mainly because they're almost always followed by a day of glorious winter sunshine which makes the garden sparkle as if it's been dusted with diamonds. I've left as many of the seedheads on this year as I felt I could, and it's in these conditions that they really reward you for it: the ones in the picture are Helenium "Moorheim Beauty", which were beginning to go a bit soggy and brown but have been transformed this morning by their frosting of mini-icicles.

Leaving seedheads on à la Piet Oudolf can be a bit hit-and-miss, I find. Some are strong enough to cope, but others (even ones Mr Oudolf recommends) collapse very quickly into a rather uninspiring mass of damp bobbles. A client of mine has an otherwise lovely clump of Rudbeckia, which are supposed to stand most of the winter, but despite my exhortations to last at least until Christmas I think I'm going to have to tidy them up in a week or so as they look just awful at the moment.

The lovely fluffy puffballs that adorn my cardoons (Cynara cardunculus) on the other hand have been wonderful - the birds think so, too, as everything from great tits to starlings have been tugging great clumps of fluff out of them to line their winter quarters with. I've got another flock of bluetits which have been stripping the seeds off the Stipa gigantea (which has been truly gorgeous this year - you can see why everyone raves about this fabulous grass). They also perch precariously on the wildly-waving bobbles of Verbena bonariensis to feast on the seeds inside: now this is one plant which stands bravely no matter what the weather, though I think mine are about to lose their heads if the birds carry on the way they are. It may be winter, but it's not boring.

Choice choisya

Another good shrub for cutting back at this time of year is Choisya ternata "Sundance". About now those lovely sunny yellow leaves which lifted your spirits through the worst of the winter weather turn a pale washed-out shade of sickly. It's time to prune them off and allow the new, green growth to come through and turn yellow in its place. It also gives the bush a lovely rounded shape for next winter, as the new growth comes through in nice neat rosettes and all stays the same length, more or less.

It's pretty simple - just take the secateurs and trim down to the next rosette of leaves, usually about 6" or so down the stem. If there isn't a rosette, just trim out the whole stem. You don't need to cut it back hard: just shape it to the size you'd like and leave it.

Choisya is one of the few shrubs you can hack back without ruining the appearance: though it does change colour temporarily, from yellow to green, a healthy plant carries enough leaves in the centre of the bush to keep it looking nice and dense. After you've finished, give it a feed of pelleted chicken manure and a good water and mulch, and it'll be set fair to keep you smiling in winter all over again.

Plant of the month - January

Helleborus x hybridus


This lovely pure flower is a real sign that spring is on the way in my garden. I have a few - this white one, which occasionally sports flecks of burgundy at the base of the petals; one deepest purple, though that isn't quite out yet, and some rather dirty pinks which I'm probably going to rogue out at some stage. But I can't grow snowdrops in my soil (though I'm going to try Galanthus elwesii soon in the hope that it'll live up to its publicity and grow in poor dry soils - unlike most snowdrops) - so Hellebores are my substitute. I love the fact that you have to get right in there to see the flowers, modestly nodding amid deeply-cut leaves but hiding the most exquisite form and shape. And the leaves provide an evergreen ground cover the rest of the year. I clip the old leaves down to the ground every autumn to give a fresh flush over winter, and then I can look forward to the flowers in all their beauty when nothing else is out yet. Glorious.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Excuse me for getting excited - but I just love the snow. It's powdering my garden to a depth of about 2" this morning - not much to hardened northerners but for us softy southerners here in Surrey it's unusually thick and a real novelty!

The only trouble is that it's the one weather condition (with the possible exception of gale-force winds accompanied by driving torrential rain) which will stop me gardening. I've had to cancel one garden this morning and it's probable I'll be having some forced holiday time tomorrow morning as well.

Not great for the bank balance - one of the rare disadvantages of life as a gardener is that you don't always choose when you take your (unpaid) holidays, and the weather is always awful. Or at least cold. Never mind - I can always look out of the window!