I am thrilled to announce that Elizabeth (Mrs Duck) has twelve incredibly cute ducklings. I’d not seen her for a while and spotted her on our pond this morning with her new brood. All my gardening jobs have gone out the window and I’m now in the process of blocking up all the fox runs with hope that Mr Fox doesn’t discover the new family.
Mrs Duck and her babies hiding in the bank of the pond
Out for a swim with her twelve babies (one is hiding)
A bunch of Spring flowers in a jam jar for a lovely friends birthday.
The flowers include Cerinthe, Anemone De Caen ‘Sylphide’, Narcissus ‘Thalia‘, Muscari, Mustard ‘Red Giant’, Tulip ‘Spring Green’ and Wallflower ‘Bowles Mauve’.
I’ve just started picking Anemone De Caen ‘Sylphide’ which I planted in my cutting border last autumn. They’re stunning and making me swoon!
The penultimate butternut squash has become a delicious soup for lunch. I adapted an easy to make Jamie Oliver recipe.
Ingredients:
Olive Oil
2 red onions
2 celery sticks
2 carrots
4 garlic cloves
2 rosemary sprigs
Fresh red chilli to taste (I just pick and freeze chilli’s for winter cooking)
Salt and Pepper
A large butternut squash
2 Litres of chicken stock
Chop up vegetables and herbs. Heat some olive oil in a large pan. Add everything apart from the butternut squash and seasoning. Cook in the oil for ten minutes. Add the butternut squash and stock. Simmer until all vegetables are tender, then liquidise. I use a hand held blender, but my knack is a little hap hazard as I invariable end up with splattered soup up the wall! Heat through and season to taste.
Butternut squash stores well over winter, mine have just been left on a shelf in the utility room. The big decision now is what to do with the last one. I know the husband will want a butternut squash risotto, somehow I will persuade him to make his amazing Thai butternut squash curry.
I’ve had great fun arranging flowers from my garden for a spring wedding. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.
Flowers picked, conditioned and grouped on my table ready for arranging
Narcissus Bridal Crown arranged in flower pots for the reception table
A bridal Spring wreath hanging over an inglenook fireplace, weaved Willow, Catkins, Pussy Willow, Old Mans Beard, Cyclamen leaves and Hellebores
Wedding wall bows with Viburnum Opulus, Narcissus Bridal Crown, white scented Pelargoniums and white Tulips
White wedding daffodils in the nooks and crannies
Wedding napkins, Wallflower Bowles Mauve, Muscari, Narcissus Tete a Tete all giving colour to the tables
The wedding tables with Narcissus Paperwhite in pots
One of the reception tables
Life has been hectic the last few weeks and as a result my blog has been neglected. Over the next week I hope to update Produce from the garden with tales of Spring wedding flowers I‘ve grown and arranged, a day with a digger landscaping areas of the garden, planning a new cut flower patch in our front garden, coppicing our Hazel Cobnuts and Willow and rescuing our large trampoline from the top of a Plum tree thanks to storm Katie!
Today I’ve had a go at weaving a Willow obelisk with our coppiced Willow as a structure for Sweet Peas to clamber up. It’s not as neat as a shop bought creation, but I love its rustic uneven charm.
I selected eight sturdy, long, straight branches and pushed them into soil in a circle. I then wove thinner Willow whips around the bottom of the eight vertical branches and another ring of woven Willow half way up the obelisk. The top branches were gathered together with a mini woven Willow wreath.
The coppiced Willow stumps will shoot in Spring providing us with new Willow whips
In our home cut flowers are as important as pictures on the wall. They bring a room to life with their colour and scent. Buying from a florist is beyond our budget and more reasonably priced supermarket flowers are generally shipped from Africa, have no scent and are often only available in insipid colours. The solution? We grow our own cut flowers, filling our home with beautiful blooms for most of the year for very little money. Most flowers ideal for cutting are ‘cut and come again’, the more you cut the more they flower!
Let me inspire you to sow a few seeds or plant a tuber so you can cut your own flowers this year.
With the help of my all time ‘Top 3 Cut Flowers’:
No. 3 Sunflowers
Who can argue with the likes of Monet and Van Gogh immortalizing vases of Sunflowers on canvas. A beautiful bunch of Sunflowers brings the warmth and richness of high summer into our homes. Even on a wet gloomy English Summer day! Easy to grow, they are often the seed of choice for schools. There are lots of Sunflower varieties ideal for cutting. Once the lead stem and flower is cut, it will induce growth, putting out multiple side shoots and flowers.
How to grow
Sow seed March to May in pots, not directly in the ground. They will germinate fine directly sown, but, slugs love baby Sunflower plants! Pop one seed into a medium sized pot, allowing sufficient space for growth. The Sunflower stem needs to establish a strong pencil sized thickness to survive slug attacks. Choose a sunny position and plant out in mid May after the last frosts. Hammer in a tall stake or sturdy cane next to each plant; they will need regular tying in to prevent the stem being damaged on a windy day. Six plants will provide you with armfuls of flowers through summer to the first frosts.
Displaying
Sunflowers look fabulous in a vase on their own or mix with other statuesque flowers. They can also be used as the star performers in a bouquet.
Recommended varieties to grow
Earth Walker, Red Sun, Valentine and Deep Red
No. 2 Cosmos
A cottage garden essential and the hardest working annual in the garden. A bunch of Cosmos on the kitchen table is the epitome of produce from an English country garden. This delicate looking stunner is a flower straight from a child’s imagination, depicted in their drawings. Easy to grow and available in white or any shade of pink.
How to grow
Cosmos are half hardy annuals so it’s best to sow them under glass or on a window sill. Sprinkle a few seeds into a pot of seed compost and cover with a thin layer of the same compost. I sow double the number of seeds I need. Most will germinate. It’s all too easy to sow too many ending up wasting seedlings and seed that can be used the following year. Once the seedlings start to get their first set of true leaves pot them on into individual pots where they’ll thrive. Plant out after the first frosts choosing a sunny site. Stake or secure a pea netting framework over them to provide a supporting structure when they’re large plants. Keep well watered through the summer and you’ll be rewarded with bountiful flowers.
Displaying
I love a big bunch of Cosmos on the kitchen table. They also look beautiful in a posy with other cottage garden flowers.
Recommended varieties to grow
Cosmos Purity, Cosmos Bipinnatus ‘Rubenza’, Cosmos Bipinnatus ‘Dazzler’ and Cosmos ‘Double Click Cranberries’
No. 1 Dahlias
I’m a bit potty about Dahlias. Every year I always sneak a few new varieties into my potting shed! These beauties are the stars of the ball. They come in many different shapes, sizes and colours and they all put a great big smile on my face. A single £2.50 tuber will reward you will with masses of flowers from early summer to the first frosts for years. Sadly they’ve acquired a high maintenance reputation which I would like to dispel.
How to grow
Make sure the tubers you buy are firm and not squishy. March to April plant them in a 3 litre plastic pot. After a few weeks they’ll start to shoot. If you get more than 5 or 6 shoots, remove them giving space for the others to develop into a bushy plant (removed shoots make successful cuttings). By mid May after the last frosts you’ll have a strong bushy plant ready to put out. Choose a sunny site for them and build a sturdy frame (I use hazel stakes) around the Dahlia to protect from wind damage. Once they start flowering keep picking. Letting flowers go to seed will halt flower production. After the first frosts cut the Dahlias back and cover with a thick 20 cm mulch (rotted manure, wood chip or anything that will help insulate the tuber over winter). Come Spring reduce the level of mulch and feed. As the soil starts to warm Dahlia shoots will emerge again. This low maintenance Dahlia method has worked for me during the coldest of Kent winters.
Displaying
Stunning as single stems in a small vase or bottle. Group together, or use in a mixed arrangement.
Recommended varieties to grow
All of them!
Dahlia Rip City
Dahlia Sam Hopkins
Dahlia Hillcrest Royal
Our wild ducks are back on the pond. They leave us in autumn for a preferred winter spot. Wherever this desirable location is, it’s tamed them this year; they seem oblivious to my boys, their friends and the dogs attention. My boys have even named them, Shaun and Elizabeth, not traditional duck names, but what can you expect from a family whose cat is called Mao! Fingers crossed for ducklings, we did see eggs last year but we think the fox who considers our garden its home got them. Operation duck watch is sadly a step too far so I fear the same again this year.
The secret to a lower maintenance garden MULCH! It suppresses weeds, helps stop your soil drying out in summer, makes the garden look tidy, and conditions your soil. It really is a wonder!
Best to get the mulch down before spring when the soil warms up and the weeds take off. Here’s my latest delivery of wood chip from a friendly tree surgeon (Arborist), who supplies it for the cost of transport, it helps him get rid of it and is the answer to most of my gardening woes! Time to get out there with a wheel barrow! One tip, do put a nitrogen rich fertiliser such as chicken manure down first, wood chip does take nitrogen out of the soil whilst decomposing ( it does go back in when it’s rotted and broken down).
Wood chip for mulching
Somehow I’ve managed to put my back out, I’ve not suffered with back pain before. I’m not comforted by friends who tell me that once hit it reoccurs and that gardening is one of the worst activities for those who suffer. So digging is out and standing up pruning is in! I would never claim to be an expert apple tree pruner; I’m more a trial and error, common sense tidier. I don’t worry too much about technique and I seem to manage the desired result, tidy trees with beautiful blossom in spring and delicious fruit come late summer/ autumn.
Some of my apple trees after pruning, I’ve just got to collect up the debris now!
I think there are just a few things to keep in mind when pruning apple trees.
Why do we bother to prune:
Last years bumper crop of apples
How to prune:
A clean angle cut, prventing rain from settleing and disease moving in.
An old horizontal pruning scar, now a little pool of winter water rottting into the trunk, I fear this lovely old trees day’s are numbered!
Useful tools for pruning, sharp secateurs, pruning saw and loppers
Some dead wood that needs removing
Remove any mummified fruit, as with all diseased wood don’t compost, burn or discard
A apple tree before pruning, note all the year old whips that are shooting up to the sky
The same tree after pruning, it might look brutal but there are lots of fruit buds waiting to blossom in the next few months
Plump fruiting buds on one of the apple trees
New wood or growth buds
So if you’re not a regular pruner, have a go it’s well worth the initial effort, don’t worry if you make mistakes, they’re lessons to be learnt, the worst that can happen is a few less apples this year. A lesson for myself is to prune in December, as I under plant the trees with spring bulbs for cutting, tip toeing with a bad back around daffodils has proved to be tricky!
