Gardening in Miniature

Evie's photo of her miniature garden

Last week, our niece; young Evie Thompson came to stay at P.T.C. As well as spring cleaning the studio super thoroughly (she even hoovered all the spiders out of each of the old bottles!) and collecting mushrooms, there was time to make a miniature garden.  It was rather rushed but this is a photo she sent after arriving home with it in Leamington Spa.  We made a winding path from horticultural grit, a pond from foil and decking from Dogwood stems.  The terrace was made from small pebbles and the studio/gazebo from more Dogwood stems with a cardboard roof.  We used moss for the lawns and Sedums and various conifers for trees and shrubs. Following all this heavy garden work, Evie helped serve much deserved cream teas for 4 in the now immaculate studio (photos of an exceptionally tidy studio to follow!)

Violas versus Pansies

Meanwhile, these are some of the Violas I planted out a couple of weeks ago.  I do find that they cope much better with winter weather, if planted out early when they can get established before the worst of the weather arrives.  These are some of Keith Bolton's specials from Heath Nursery, Lower Broadheath.  As I said in a previous post, although smaller flowers than Pansies, they are more disease resistant and therefore less susceptible to fungal diseases.  They all have rather cross faces though!

Greenhouse work in the dark!

Since the new/old greenhouse tiles were laid and grouted by Chris, I've been itching to finish off by cleaning all the glass inside and giving the tiles a thorough brush over.  I had to steel myself to wait for the grout to dry first! It looked pretty dry this morning and in any case, I didn't spill water on them. It's amazing how much more light there is now the glass has been cleaned - even though I only did the inside.  It was really quite green with large areas of algae.  Having swept and brushed the tiles, I was able to lug the heavy pots back into place.  Not wanting to obscure too many tiles, some of the smaller pots have been rearranged in the main greenhouse.  Now: even before the greenhouse tiling project was thought of, it was always my intention this year to have some winter colour inside it.  Feeling doubly inspired and not having got around to growing anything from seed, it was off to buy a few Primulas and half a dozen Pansies.  This year only Violas have planted outside because I'm fed up with all the spotted fungal diseases Pansies attract and having been infected, they look so miserable.  Violas seem so much more resistant and so I potted up the Pansies for indoor pleasure only.  One's ever loving husband kindly put up more shelving and adjusted its height making more room for over wintering Geraniums and freeing up the staging for more colour.

The only trouble with all this work was the fact that the clocks changed and I was potting up in the dark!  No light over the potting bench and one just didn't want to spill compost on a freshly cleaned greenhouse floor!

More worthy of a period orangery!

More recycling and not just in the garden......

Whether it's up on the roof or down on the floor; one way and and another, there's been a lot of tiling going on at PTC.  When one Chris gives you lovely reclaimed tiles and the other Chris lays them, that's about as good as it gets!  Well.............nearly.  I must say that had I had any inkling that I would have been given anything so lovely, I wouldn't have chosen a brick greenhouse path.  I would definitely have used these tiles.  That being said, we now have a a tiled entrance and the end section of the greenhouse has had the concrete slabs now tiled over in these lovely ochre patterned clay tiles.  They have since been grouted with an ochre coloured grout and I now can't wait to clean the glass before rearranging plants to over winter there.  Such beautiful tiles are definitely more worthy of an elegant orangery than a modern cedar Dutch light greenhouse.  Having said that, some of them did find their way into the back hall, the larder and the bottom of the Elgar stairs.  Well, I did say there's been a lot of tiling!!!

Leaves as bright as jewels!

Leaf fall on the old oak bench on a dull autumnal day down in the Woodland Border.  

Lessons in Bonsai Pruning

Two weeks earlier

Isn't just great when one has a Bonsai expert on hand!  Before replacing broken chimney tiles, Chris G. gave my most precious Acer (ie the one my Daddy gave me) the once over.  Because it's on the side of the path, it's important not to have twigs and branches projecting at eye level.  Rather than just prune it back, Chris has tied some branches down and showed me how to prune back to a pair of horizontal buds rather than a pair above and below each other.  It's over two years since Chris manhandled it out of its pot and showed me how to prune the roots before repotting it.  It's now so big, I couldn't imagine ever being able to repaeath that exercise! The leaves on this Acer are almost black in spring and even though most have now fallen, just see how vivid they are.  Perhaps I should mention that it's an Acer dissectum atropurpureum - just in case you're wondering!

The girls.....

.......chilling on a Sunday morning!