International VE Day Garden Cairn!

Finished & planted cairn

Chief Blogger's bin a tad busy lately!  Cairns to finish and a zillion other things before open gardens at the end of the month.  Temperatures have been positively glacial for most of this month with occasional frosts at night.  This cold snap has meant that potatoes have been earthed up early - well, early for me.  The sparrows have been dust bathing in my onions and none have germinated in a whole row!!  Not to be outdone, I've sown another row between the peas and beans - a somewhat less inviting location for sparrows.  As it was a 2 Chris Saturday with Chris P. strimming and hedgecutting - ALL day, I lapsed into apprentice mode and helped Chris G. finish the cairn (as well as glue on ceiling letters - a whole different story and totally un-garden related!)  As a mere apprentice, my job was sorting & passing stone and mortar! Many of the stones used have come from all over the place - some from as far afield as Australia, Yorkshire, Wales, Scotland, Shropshire - to name but a few places.   It's  really quite an international cairn! 

View from the far  end of the service path

A finished cairn meant much rubbing down and sculpting of mortar the following day and a major clear up around the base.  I know that the building part is where the real skill lies but, the removal of the mortar from around the stones really is totally transforming.  I found a drop of brick acid left so cleaned up the slate plaque and some of the stones.  During its construction, Chris left some pockets for planting ferns so I was able to squeeze a few in and others around the base.  It doesn't look quite so new now and it'll will soon weather in.  Hopefully most of the ferns will survive their move and moss will colonise the nooks and crannies.  ...............And we did actually start building it on the 70th anniversary of VE Day.  Victory all round!

Angelic Angelica!

Just some shots of Angelica by the silver birch logs.  It's about at its best right now as it quite a striking and statuesque plant. I can't imagine how it got such a name.  A common name is Angels' Fishing Rods but it bears no resemblance.  The Royal Horticultural Society also tells us: 

Angelica Archangelica are large biennials or herbaceous perennials, some monocarpic, with pinnately or palmately divided leaves and small white or purple flowers in large umbels.  A. archangelica is a robust upright perennial, sometimes monocarpic, with 2 – 3 pinnate leaves to 60cm in length, and rounded umbels of light yellow flowers in early summer.

This is from Wikipedia and even more interesting:

Natives of Lapland use the fleshy roots as food and the stalks as medicine. Crystallized strips of young angelica stems and midribs are green in colour and are sold as decorative and flavoursome cake decoration material, but may also be enjoyed on their own. The roots and seeds are sometimes used to flavour gin. Its presence accounts for the distinct flavour of many liqueurs, such as Chartreuse. 

Among the Sami people of Lapland, the plant is used to make a traditional musical instrument the fadno.

I have only enjoyed eating it crystallised and had never thought of flavouring gin....................................................until now!

Garden Feature to Remember VE Day!

Sculpting mortar!

We had always fancied using up all the left over and spare bits of stone to build a cairn but somehow never found quite the right spot for it or it could never be deemed a priority!!  Then we did find a spot for one and we had the perfect occasion: the 70th anniversary of VE day.  Of course our master builder: Chris Genever was at the helm with his trusty helper not far behind!  We found a piece of slate which Chris cut to size and with one of Al's punches, I inscribed the words 'VE Day MMXV'.  It made a perfect plaque to build in on the front.

View from the cairn

Inside and, in an empty wine bottle (hic!), we placed a piece of paper in a sealed plastic bag describing the occasion, date and naming the 2 builders.  We persevered despite the increasing rain and to protect it overnight, a plastic bin liner was rather unceremoniously placed over it until the following day when I gouged, rubbed and sculpted much of the crumbly and drying mortar so as to expose each individual stone.  Now, given that on one side and much too close for comfort is a vicious rose backed up by a thorny berberis, this was quite the most uncomfortable activity!

And where is this being built?  Well, about two thirds of the way along the service path - the idea being that it forms a focal point at the end of a straight and narrow woodchip path with a mixed native hedge on one side and a line of shrubs on the other.

Competition Tomatoes!

With Matt & Sarah up for the weekend, and after all the hard garden work on Saturday, we decided to get a bit competitive with the Genever tomato plants and each of us planted and labelled their named variety.  Each will be treated with the same levels of TLC (promise!) and we shall see whose is the tallest and, more importantly, whose has the biggest yield of fruit!  Note that the canes used in the greenhouse are not the nice new golden canes that Matt and I trimmed, cut and bundled for sale at Open Gardens!

Bringing Bamboo in from the garden

  

Black Bamboo - Phyllostachys Nigra

Homemade towel ladder!

                                                                                                                                    Now,  I wouldn't normally put a bathroom photo on a garden blog! In this case, I just wanted to show a bamboo towel rail that Chris Genever and I made out out of bamboo from the Hen Pen. We cut some black bamboo and canes down in the Henclosure, brought it indoors and made a ladder/rail for towels.  Needless to say, using it immediately meant that; as it dried out the joints became loose so Chris put some small nuts and bolts in them.   Because bamboo splits so easily, cutting with a junior hacksaw left a much tidier finish on the ends. When I have time, I shall bind them with some jute twine. These can be made to any size and with as many or few rungs as required. It's just a glorified ladder. Ours is proving very useful and cost absolutely nuffink at all!  

Enjoying a sunset

Martley Hillside from the summerhouse

The Under Gardener enjoying a sundowner!

One piece of advice Monty Don always gives is to take time to enjoy our gardens especially at this time of year.  Well for once (actually twice) we have enjoyed drinks in the summerhouse and watched the sunset over Hillside.  It's been too glacial to sit on the terrace and the summerhouse is just the perfect spot.  The hawthorn blossom is just wonderfully fragrant as are the lilacs and the scent wafts across in the still cool air.  The wisteria is coming into bloom and fledgling birds are hopping around the garden in the undergrowth.  At this time of year, the changes in the garden happen so fast, it's especially nice to take time to sit and enjoy the sights, sounds and scents.  Yep, Monty's definitely got a point......................sigh.

                                                                                                                     More photos

Owl Attack.

Before winter temperatures returned, Chris made an barn owl!!!  He made it out of a block of Western Red Cedar (which had been sitting on the drive for a few weeks) using his chainsaw - note the carving chainsaw!  It was quite a labour of love and took him most of the afternoon.  The owl spent a couple of weeks in the barn drying out and then I spent a couple of afternoons sanding it before treating him with a 50-50 mix of linseed oil and pure turpentine which really brought out the grain.  For now he sits outside the barn. Does that make him a barn owl?