Cheering Sights in a January Garden

Lonicera Fragrantissima

The old Victorian tree guard

A calm and frosty day with not a breath of air moving and I found a shrub covered in highly fragrant blooms to remind us that the days are getting just that tiny bit longer as the sun came up behind an old Victorian tree guard.!!

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Burns Night Gardening!

Heinz....

Not many Saturdays have I ever abandoned outdoor gardening duties entirely. Early Burn's night supper preparations meant I did just that! Poor Chris was left to finish emptying the compost heap all on his own and it was such a lovely clear crisp day - sigh!

....Heathers!

One idea I had both for the table and as gifts for the ladies was recycling empty tins.  I soaked off the old labels and as the glue has a half life of 2000 years, I made new labels and stuck them on using the original glue!  I printed out some random sheet music giving it the title of a Burns poem, cut it to size and tied around some ribbon, Lastly, I popped in a heather and put a row of 4 down the centre of the table.  Alas, if I'd had red ribbon, it would have looked much better!

Proved

Baked

To maintain a horticultural theme, I made some flower pot bread in a clay pot given as a bread making present by Janine.  It worked perfectly and just required an extra 10 minutes in the oven.  I did cover the top to ensure it didn't burn and it turned out perfectly!

Burn's night means that almost more time is spent is spent on the table - menus, poetry sheets, place names, themed decorations etc etc than the actual food.  Well maybe not quite as I made cock-a-leekie soup and butter shortbread as well as the bread.  The lovely thing was that guests brought deserts of crannachan and bread and butter puddings.  I'll have to make up for lost time next Saturday!!!

Plant Labelling Made Easier

The year before last, I carefully labelled all my lily bulbs using a 'permanent' marker on a white plastic label.  I tucked the label down the edge of the pot ensuring sunlight wouldn't bleach out the ink.  Last autumn when I repotted the bulbs; I found that every name was totally illegible and, to all intents and purposes, the white plastic labels were just that.........pristine white plastic and not a single visible letter.  You would have thought I'd used invisible ink!!  Anyway - look what I had for Christmas!!  A garden labeller which has a cassette containing label ribbon  and prints out and cuts individual sticky labels.  Now, can anyone help identify 9 pots of differing lily bulbs??

End of an Era

Moving Wol

Cause of death

In healthier days

We had done everything humanly possible to save an old pear tree at the end of the drive but it was just determined to die.  In the years we have lived here it had declined and declined.  The fruit yields became less and less and then no fruit at all.  Branches kept dying back and we cut them off - knowing in our heart of hearts that the entire tree was actually dying.  It had become home to Wol (an owl made out of an old oil tank) and a wooden owl box.  Eventually, there were no leaves or branches left to shade the owl box and both were totally exposed.  Today was the day to fell it so...we did.  We were of course proved right and you can see from the photos that it could never have survived.  We have kept a small plank and logged the rest.  The work kept us warm and the logs will also keep us warm!  Luckily, Pear tree Cottage has 3 other pear trees to its name.

A sad end

The return of PTC's Under Gardener

  

Al back at work...

...& Chris at work!!

It was really lovely to see the return of our Under Gardener who has been on light duties for a very long time following a knee replacement.  He stoked up a really smokey bonfire a few feet from where we were emptying the compost heap and it felt just like old times again!  With eyes streaming Chris and I toiled through dense smoke loading barrows with compost.  It's quite difficult to rush away with a heaped up barrow but that's what we were doing in order to breathe!  Saturday's are now back to normal - they just haven't been the same without Al's bonfires!!!  I wonder if you can buy breathing apparatus on EBay.............?

Win Win with Homemade Compost

At long last - back to some border work!  The recent gales and high winds have at least had a much needed drying effect on the soil and conditions were really quite reasonable.  We cut back all the dead Sedums, Peonies, Lychnis and Geraniums and eradicated what few weeds there were before top dressing with a super high quality home made compost!  Its texture was light crumbly and sweet smelling - perfect!  I know Monty Don makes heavy weather of compost making but I can promise you that ours is the result of composting grass clippings, vegetable and soft garden waste along with newspapers and chicken droppings.  It is certainly NOT turned every 5 minutes as Monty recommends - we have far better things to do!  It is turned once from one bay to another and then left for a year.  It makes a really good quality mulch and potting medium which not only feeds the plants and improves soil quality but suppresses weed growth ...
                                                                                          .............................what's not to like??