"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease;

For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells."

Well the poetry is all, of course, thanks to John Keats and is the first verse of his 'Ode to Autumn'. As an aside, the pink flower picture above is proof that Dahlias can be bee-friendly despite being unscented. Indeed Dahlia centres almost always reveal themselves before the flower goes over, however ornate, decorative or pom-pom shaped the flower is. You will only frustrate the bees if you cut or dead-head them too early (which I know you'll do for competition blooms!). If you leave the dieing heads on for a bit longer the bees will thank you.

Anyway, in this time of lots of 'brown' in the garden - mud, bare earth, dead heads on roses, general 'over' plant material and fallen leaves that still need clearing, I thought some colour and remembrance of recent past glories was in order.

And I haven't really blogged Autumn. The colours have been fabulous and it has been so mild and gentle on the plants still in flower.

Indeed things in the garden are behaving very strangely.  Friends here already had daffodils out in December. I have them out now, along with Saxifrage that really needs to wait until later. And I still have last year's Geums, Geraniums and Roses in flower plus re-appearing Knautia macedonia 'Melton Pastels' and Clematis buds everywhere. I do hope these later frosts won't completely knock them out because they should really be resting at the moment and saving their energy for later in the year.

And six of the Armeria lovelies below (which I bought on an impulse as fillers) have flowered non-stop since March 2015 when I planted them in the terrace walls. They look like better-flowered chives in pink, red and white. The flowers are sort of papery and pre-dried from the start so they last really well too - even when cut. These little charmers are amazing value all round really.

So, post the poetry, I thought I'd give you just a few more Autumn pictures. They don't fit the other verses of Keats' ode so it is basically a photo blog from here on in - which I am sure you'll be grateful for - instead of the 'many thousand plus words' I normally end up writing.

This plant nearly got dug up a hundred times this Summer as it so resembled a thistle weed. And then, in October (much too late really), it suddenly did this (see below). Thus it remains on the 'Try not to dig up' list.

For me oranges, yellows and reds are the colours of Autumn and so many late-flowering perennials and Dahlias oblige. They work wonderfully with the contrasting purples of same-time flowering Verbena bonariensis, Chleome and Buddleja with all their butterflies and the textural contrast of grasses in flower.

These are tall Alstromerias 'Red Beuaty' and 'Orange Supreme' (dug up from a clump in my London garden) teamed with grasses Miscanthus sinensis 'Ghana' (the red one) and Nasella tenuissima and and the Verbena bonariensis and Geum 'Princess Juliana' below.

And I couldn't resist a couple of butterfly pics.. Butterflies seem especially to love purple flowers - above is a Red Admiral on Buddleja 'Lochinch' below is a Small White on Verbena bonariensis.

I have also had Peacock, many other types of 'White', Painted Lady, Tortoiseshell, the vibrant green of Brimstone and the delicate Meadow brown around, especially on the nettles and briars of the surrounding farm edges. I have not seen any Blues thus far, nor Fritillaries. Perhaps 2016 will yield more.

The Dahlias as ever have provided lots of Autumn colour and flowers for cutting - so many in fact that I have also filled pots in the local shop with them. Above are D. Karma Fuschiana (pink/orange) and D. Chat Noir. The D. 'Garden Wonder' below is such a bright red that it refuses to be properly photographed. The camera simply cannot capture the intensity of the colour.

The two plants that surprised and pleased me most last year were the Lupin and the Geum. I bought a mix of Lupins as quick fillers to plant when I was first able to get into the garden in late Spring/early Summer. But, rather than being 'early/mid Summer wonders' as I had expected, they have been in flower from May until late November. All they need is a bit of dead-heading and possibly the enriched ground(?) to keep them throwing up new spires. I have been most impressed and thrilled with them.

The orange Geums ('Princess Juliana' above - vibrant, double orange, tall and very strong and 'Totally Tangerine' - single, elegant and slighly less orange from a distance), have also flowered all year. I am sure this is also about the soil inputs and regular dead-heading I have done. It's laborious on Geums, because they have so many small flowers, but they really respond to it and I think it's worth it for the really long season of colour you get as a result.

Lupins (like Dahlias) are very prone to destruction by slugs early in the season as their new, young, shoots appear from the soil in Spring. So we'll see what happens this year. I expect them to be destroyed on their re-appearance. They were in London. I may need to simply dig them up and replace them with fully formed plants from a garden centre but, if so, I think it might be worth the cost for the amazing display they have put on almost all this year. Well established plants seem to beat the slugs. And I have kept some seed pods and will give those a go too in the greenhouse.

So that's my ode to Autumn - a beautiful time with lots of flora and insects - and, of course, here we get our fair share of rainbows in the huge skies overhead. So, I'll leave you with a wonderful one (and its shadow) which turned up to welcome January in over the garden on New Year's day......

...... and one of the Buzzards that keeps a beady eye on us from a neighborouring tree.

I’ve always felt that water in a garden brings it to life – with wildlife, sounds (especially if you have a pump/stream) and reflections, let alone all the things that might live in it. So a pond is always a “must-have” for me in my garden.

I’ve also always wanted a bridge over the pond.

In London I resisted the temptation because the pond was pretty small (3m x Im x 1m) but here I reckoned the new pond was just about large enough to justify a bridge so I put one in the original design where it looked fine.

So, when I started this garden project I set about exploring pre-built bridges online. Every bridge seemed to start on the ground and finish there, either flat or gently arched and most weren’t long enough. Also they were mostly in softwoods and a great many were ‘Japanese Garden’ looking. Overall, they weren’t quite what I was after. I wanted something flat, with steps up and down (to improve the view from the bridge), handrails all the way, and for it to be generally more “across-a-rural-stream” looking.

By happenstance, when I was in the community village shop, I saw a flyer from a skilled wood boat restorer, Alastair Munro, who was offering his services for wood-built things generally. So I rang him and simply asked “Would you like to build me a bridge?”

Despite never having built a bridge before he accepted the challenge and together we sort of designed and planned it over my kitchen table and I agreed he would build it the old fashioned way he recommended (ie tenon and mortise joints, wooden plugs etc.), in oak - an expensive but long lasting decision.

So, for the next some months, at the same time as things were happening in the garden reconstruction, I suddenly had to rush over to Alastair’s workshop, dodge round the boats he was restoring and film the various elements of the bridge as they were created either by a rudimentary wood cutting/forming/shaping machine or by hand. (The video captures this creation but doesn’t really do justice to the amount of time and care taken on each piece.)

In the process I have learned that bridges are mighty complicated and very heavy. They have to bear a lot of weight and strain across the span and we had to sink huge legs into the ground around the newly forming pond to keep it secure. Dermot and Alastair worked closely together to achieve this. I tried not to watch as they started to put it in and up. I let them get on with it (for some long time) before stepping in. My practical woman’s eye spotted what was going wrong as they tried to fit things together. We sorted it. I shall say no more.

Anyway, suddenly the structure was up and stable. Okay it wasn’t usable as a bridge yet because it had no steps - but it was mostly there. It had been months in gestation and a huge effort in its construction.

I stood back to admire it but all I thought was “Cripes, this is far too huge/tall for the garden and pond”. I spent weeks worrying about how high and large it was. I tried re-assuring myself that it worked on the computer design when everything else in the garden was in place and the plants had grown.

Alastair said he could chop the legs down to bring it back to ground level but, after all the work setting the legs in, I wasn’t planning to chop them off unless absolutely necessary.

Over the next few months bridge work was halted by snow and mud generally but, nearby, the large, trellised covered, wooden swing seat from Duckpaddle arrived, Alan’s iron rose arch parade was installed, the shed and greenhouse were completed and then the plants started to grow. As each of these things happened the bridge seemed to get smaller in proportion. I decided to bide my time on the verdict of whether it was too large for the garden.

Then, later this Summer, when it was being finished, my visiting nieces and nephews and my neighbours’ children and their friends adored the pond and the bridge in particular. They raced across it, hung over it, swam in the pond (when I had turned the electrics off!) and, most usefully, they loved clearing the blanket weed out of it, despite the mass of water snail poo involved.

So, by the end of the Summer the bridge stood as large and proud as designed and built. The oak is also greying nicely.

However the pond below it is still empty of fish. Frogs and toads are sparse so far and all it seems to hold, despite a great deal of planting, is dragonflies (a great delight), water boatmen and other nymphs, plus a gazillion water snails who seem to be congregating on the pump and slowing its water intake.

I really miss fish in the pond. It is ready for them. The tap water it was filled with initially has been transformed into fish-friendly water and I need fish to eat the snails’ eggs to control their exponential growth.

Far too many water snail eggs in their see-through pouch - fish control needed!

‘My’ fish – especially Big Yellow and Silver Rocket – both Koi, still reside in the old pond in London where they are being “fish-sat” by the lovely couple who bought my home there. I am in a quandary as to what to do with them. They are very large now and would love the extra space in my new pond here. But the effort of catching and transporting them for over two hours might be expensive and complicated. Also the stress could possibly kill them. At their size they are worth quite a lot of money now and it’ll take a long time to grow others as large. They were tame and I am very fond of them, Big Yellow in particular, so I would love them to be here but is it worth the risk? I simply don’t know what to do for the best - ie for their sakes.

I am going to have to take advice but quite who I am going to get this from is a different matter so, if you are a koi transportation expert, please email me asap..

Thus, at the moment, the pond remains fish-less and I don’t plan to change this now until the Spring. It also needs frogs and toads. As you may know from my London blogs, frog/toad “singing” is one of my major joys in the early months of each year and I love watching their spawning antics.

I have created hibernation holes in the rockery around the pond and planted lots of things in it to try and encourage wildlife. I have also painstakingly built a pebble strewn, wildlife “beach” made of over 200 small stones (each hand glued to the liner with outrageously expensive aquarium glue) so that any mammals that might fall in can walk out via it. I don’t know how many mammals have had to resort to the beach (apart from dogs and human children) but so far I have still had to rescue Bob Starling from it and found a drowned mole in it – I suppose the mole couldn’t see/find the beach?

I don’t know if the pond’s seeming sterility is the lack of fish, the young planting or the filter. I didn’t have a filter in the London pond – it was all murky with fish poo and plant detritus - and wildlife seemed to love it. So the pond experiments will continue over Winter and into Spring. The garden is still very new so I shall watch with interest to see if frogs and toads find the pond and use it this Spring. If not I may need to move some spawn from elsewhere to start a frog colony.

In the meantime, the bridge looks great, if still a bit big, but it continues to seem smaller as the garden grows. All good.

Have you ever reared a fledgling wild bird until it can fly away? I hadn’t until Bob Starling came into my life this year. This is Bob’s story.

Bob dropped (or was pushed) from a great height (three floors up) from the very noisy and messy starling nest that existed in my roof edgings.

Bob was so named – some days later - without my knowing the bird’s sex because I used to have a friend at university called Robert Stirling, he spent some time in my pond (Bob the bird, not my friend) and it just sounded right. Bob can be a unisex name ie Roberta/Robert. However, for the sake of this blog Bob is a male bird.

Anyway, back to the story. He fell/tumbled down a lower roof and into a corner of my terrace, where the dogs found him. They didn’t attack him but got very close and barked lots. He made desperate attempts to flutter up the wall away from them but clearly couldn’t fly. I shooed the dogs away and picked him up. He seemed unharmed by his fall – legs, wings etc, all OK.

So suddenly I had a live baby bird, partly fledged, that couldn’t fly properly, in my hands. On the ground he was prey for the many local cats plus the magpies, sparrow hawks, red kites, owls and other predators that would love to take him from here – dead or alive.

Stupidly, initially, I hoped I could get him back to his nest so I put him in the highest gutter that I could reach on a ladder. It was still many metres away from the original nest and all he did was sit there, shiver and look miserable.

So I brought him back down. He shrieked his disapproval of being handled again and a parent arrived. “Thank goodness” I thought. The parent dive-bombed me very aggressively so I put the fledgling on the lawn for his parent to take him away. It worked tirelessly attempting to teach him to fly. I stood aside, locked the dogs in the house, kept cats/magpies etc away, watched for a bit but went back to my gardening.

Eventually the parent and baby were gone. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of baby starling - he had flown off with his parent successfully. I continued with my gardening and weeding.

An hour or so later Pickle started barking at the pond. He barks at the pond a lot when he drops his balls in there for fun, but this barking sounded different. I investigated and found the starling babe floundering in the plants I had recently planted. His flying attempts had obviously ended in the pond and his parent had given up on him, without my noticing.

He was alive if drenched

But he was still alive, if drenched. He must have been in the pond for an hour or so and was tiring as he tried and failed to clamber out of it. Now that he was wet there was simply no way he could fly anywhere, let alone back to the nest.

It was early evening. It suddenly dawned on me that he was now my responsibility if he was to survive the night. I had to dry him off, warm him up and try to keep him alive, at least before returning him to his nest or the wild - if possible.

So, despite his loud shrieks, I fished him out of the pond, wrapped him in swaddling towels and held him to my breast in the warm kitchen for much of the evening. To the dogs’ amazement I carried on normal life with a small bird wrapped up and stuffed into my bra. I had seen my mum do this with sickly chicken chicks when I was a child so I knew it worked. And it did.

Bob seemed very determined to stay alive but he had to go somewhere overnight - he couldn’t stay in my bra or, indeed, in the house.

The greenhouse was my saviour. I put my heated propagator shelf on the ground, found an old dog cage and covered it tightly in an old sheet. I put lots of old dog toys, towels and cuddly things inside to make a sort of nest and then placed Bob in, feeling very pleased with my imaginative response to young bird care.

Seconds later I panicked. I realised I also had to feed and water him to keep him alive. Saving him from the fall, the dogs, predators and the near drowning was not going to be enough. He needed to eat and drink.

But what to feed him?

I had no idea what to feed him. I have never fed a wild bird except via a bird table or my parents’ feathererd menagerie of chickens, ducks, geese, Guinea fowl etc. when I was a child.

Thank goodness for Google!

I searched “what to feed a fledgling starling” and of course lots of people knew. In the nest they live on insect protein but the site I chose made it very clear I should not feed him worms. Apparently adult birds know the difference between good and bad worms and humans simply don’t. A bad worm could kill him.

I had to make a mix of cooked, chicken-based, dog or cat kibble combined with stewed apple and hard-boiled eggs. I had to borrow an apple and an egg from a neighbour and then I cooked up this foul smelling and somewhat cannibalistic yellow/green concoction.

Not very hopefully, I approached Bob in the greenhouse. I used an old feather quill from a blackbird to offer the food to him. He was wary and difficult but eventually the scent got to him. He took a first, cautionary bite. Then he decided he loved it and would take it from me. He ate a lot. I can’t tell you how thrilled and excited I was.

Then I was worried about water. Apparently you shouldn’t put water directly into their mouths – they can drown. You have to drip it onto their beak. So I did this too.

It was all pretty messy but he ate and took water. I did this a few times that evening because they are supposed to be fed every 45 minutes can you believe? He responded well and I began to think he might possibly survive the night.

The next morning, there he was – dry at last, warm, alive, noisy, calling for food, and making the same sounds as his siblings in the nest far above in my roof. Suddenly I was his new parent until I could return him to them – or later to the wild on his own.

Something of a responsibility

Thus started 10 days of caring for and feeding Bob Starling. I let him have the full run of the greenhouse every day and put him to bed in the cage at night. I fed him every two hours or so and started leaving the food mix and water for him in upturned jam jar lids. He learned to feed himself from these, especially overnight, which was very gratifying.

 The older I get the less happy I am to kill anything. I admit to drowning snails and slugs and to squashing blackfly, greenfly and Lily beetles on my plants but almost everything else I usher away or out of the house and garden. However, I have to admit that I killed flies and small spiders in the house and greenhouse for Bob. He didn’t get many but, when he did, he relished them.

Feeding him by hand was somewhat chaotic. First I had to find him on the floor under the staging, behind the empty pots and general greenhouse stuff. Then I had to tempt him to come to the food. It was hard on my knees and I got bored so eventually I took to chasing him/picking him up and feeding him with my fingers. It was much more effective.

Then one day I found him on the bottom shelf of my staging – about 20cms up. He must have jumped or flown up – a good sign. A few days later he was on the top shelf of the staging (about 1 metre up). He could only have flown up there – a great sign.

I continued to hand feed him and leave food and water in the lids, day and night. Despite his squawking on being caught, I think he quite liked being hand-fed as he got older - he got better and better at it. I think he also quite liked being put to bed in his dark, warm ‘nest’.

Towards the end he spent a couple of days on the top of the greenhouse staging by a North-facing window watching all the other birds outside. He didn’t try to fly at all. He just watched, all day. When starlings came past he would give a little squawk of recognition but he did nothing else. I like to think he spent the time learning about life outside and other birds - from the safety of my greenhouse.

His release

A couple of days later he started to fly around the greenhouse. I studied his siblings in the nest at the top of my house. They too were experimenting with flight, albeit supervised by their parents. They were also starting to feed on my bird feeders.

So this was when I knew it was time for him to go. I opened the door and all the windows in the greenhouse so he could get out. I expected him to make an immediate escape - he had stayed ‘wild’ as far as I was concerned.

But Bob didn’t leave the greenhouse for a long time that day. He sat by his favourite, now open, window for hours just watching. When, at last, he took the plunge, he ignored the open door, and chose the small gap afforded by this favourite window. But all he did was drop onto the cold frame immediately below.

He then spent a lot of time looking back up at the window. He seemed to be wondering whether to return to the safety of the greenhouse or not and it made me worried that he might have been too ‘man-handled’ and molly-coddled or even that he could still not fly properly or was as yet too young to be left to his own devices.

He stayed below the window for about 10 minutes - just looking, watching, listening and I was very worried for him. Then, suddenly, on no obvious cue, he flew up into the tree above and disappeared. I was thrilled but also worried for him of course. He was covered in my scent. Would he be accepted by his family, other starlings and other wild birds generally?

Over the next few days the starlings from his original nest and elsewhere (young and old) were feeding voraciously on my bird feeders. They were squabbling, screeching and jostling as per normal. For two days I put the last of the kibble/apple/egg mix out for Bob or whoever – and it all went. As starlings grow up they lose their exterior yellow bill linings. Suddenly they are only distinguished from the adults by their slimmer build and lighter coloured feathers. They all fed busily for days.

I still don’t know if Bob was one of the survivors in the wild and/or was re-united with his family. All I can tell you is that when all his siblings and parents from the nest above were feeding noisily on my bird table and I walked outside, they all flew away except one young one who continued to feed and watch me happily as I walked around and, eventually, filmed. I hope it was Bob.

It is far too long since I last blogged – apologies but I have been very busy. My business (corporate/financial video) work has been pretty full on and I have become fairly involved in village life, committees and clubs - eg books, gardening, the community shop, the annual fete etc.. At the same time, obviously, I have been manically researching/buying plants and physically planting in the garden and greenhouse to get the first season going, leaving me little time to write, film, edit blogs and their videos etc. – so apologies but this one just has photos.

Anyway, to the garden.

It’s finished, in construction terms. The day at the end of April that the last of the 20+ skips was carted away, the new gravel went down on the drive and we filled the pond was a great day. I said fond farewells to Dermot and Chris 2. Dermot had been with me five days a week, for seven months, so it was a bit of a shock – for the dogs and me. The next day I was suddenly alone - with acres of beds to plant.

My credit and debit cards of course rose to the challengs and I am really happy with the new garden. My dream paths (based on the photo from a book – see previous blog) have been re-created in different stones and colours for this garden and I love them.

The model left and the final path right

So what I have learned this summer about my new garden and its plants? Well lots of course, some of which is below.

Take great care with soil additives

Since the last skip left I have been planting - and weeding – non-stop. The ten tons of horse manure dug in, it transpires, were full of grass, nettle and thistle seeds. Much worse, however, were the tons of “weed-free” topsoil I got from Bradfords. These turned out to be full of horribly spikey, very virulent weeds plus lots of others. Be warned – be very careful where you get your topsoil from and never buy it from Bradfords. The topsoil was put almost everywhere and the weed problem now is so serious that I have decided that, henceforth, I shall only buy aged, bagged, horse manure and much more expensive, top quality, weed-free-guaranteed topsoil - but never from Bradfords.

Just some of the weeds in Bradford's 'weed-free' topsoil

The only truly weed-free input was the 14 tons of cooked soil improver/compost I got from the dump via Viridor. Thoroughly recommended!

Flowering plant learnings

I moved in June 2014 and the garden was created in time for its first full summer. It’s doing really well (on the whole) and looking pretty good - at least better than I had expected in a few months. Obviously lots of trees, shrubs, roses and other perennials that’ll get bigger and fill out are just starting, but I have already managed to create some clumps of colour and texture, and height with new trees, climbers, sweet peas, runner beans, Lupins, Delphiniums and a host of other plants.

Buy in large, odd quantities

In my smaller London garden, as a plant lover, I wanted one of everything I could cram in. Though tempting to do the same with even more plants in this larger space, I decided it would simply look too ‘bitty’. So, apart from trees, major shrubs and certain specimen plants, I have had to learn to buy in quantity to create ‘clumps’ of colour, shape and texture and so that one can repeat or mirror a colour/texture effect elsewhere in the garden.

For some reason one is supposed to buy in odd numbers so I bought 3 x Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ for example despite knowing how huge each one would get, 3 x every Geum, 5 or 7 times other things especially some grasses, but with one grass (Nasselta tunuissima) I have bought about 15. However, if you read the article here you’ll see that after 7, ‘even’ numbers are not a problem. It also explains why we buy in odd numbers.

And I must say this approach is paying dividends. The garden already looks quite full and voluptuous in parts and somewhat cohesive. It certainly doesn’t look as formal, meagre and bitty in its first Summer as my London garden did when it was first planted. 12 years have at least taught me something!

London on first planting (left) and here (right)  - the grass helps.

However, I have also learned that, sometimes, large quantities are too much. I planted about 36 sweet peas up five wigwams and after filling every room in the house, giving weekly bunches to all my neighbours and the shop, I still couldn’t keep up with all the cutting required. It’ll be three wigwams next year and around 22 plants.

Aspect is no guarantee

This garden is North-facing but I have had some rude shocks. Firstly, it is bathed in sunshine almost all day in Summer (when it’s not been raining of course). The BBC told us the other day that the most rainfall this August was recorded in Motcombe, Dorset. Motcombe is five minutes from here, so you may sympathise with me now.

However, despite the rain, many of the shade-loving plants I planned and ordered online over Winter/early Spring were struggling. I’ve even had to plant an unplanned tree - Catalpa bignoides Aurea - towards the house, to create more shade for them. No great problem – any excuse to plant a new tree is welcome.

 It is also very windy here. We are in a wide valley and the winds whistle through. Someone locally said to me “if you’ve got views you get winds” and it’s so true. Views, per se, are open vistas with few windbreaks whether you are on the top of a hill, in an open valley or by the sea. And with this year’s strange location of the Gulf Stream we’ve also had lots of colder NE and NW winds as well as the prevailing South Westerlies.

But I love my views and do not plan to hide them. So I am already thinking about adapting my plant choices. For instance, I planted a number of large flowered, early, purple Clematis up the rose parade – Daniel Deronda, Lasurstern, Kinju Atarishii and Mrs Cholmondeley for example. They flowered well initially but were blasted by the early summer winds so their petals looked pretty dreadful much of the time.

Luckily, I also planted later-flowering Clematis (C. ‘Prince Charles’, C. ‘Wisley’, C. ‘North Star’ etc) which are smaller but more profusely flowered, and they have done really well in July/August and have looked fabulous for over six weeks.

Clematis 'Wisley' left and Clematis 'Prince Charles' right

I was about to dig out all the large-flowered, early, Clematis to replace them with smaller-flowered ones when they suddenly did a second flowering in August and looked fab.. The winds were lighter and they added beauty and colour again. So I can’t decide whether to replace them with viticellas, alpinas etc or to keep them.

My feeling is that they will eventually be more sheltered by the Wisteria, Lonicera and roses they will be growing through on the arches. At the moment they are the fastest, tallest growers and thus very exposed to the winds. In three years’ time they’ll just be part of the mix and will be much more sheltered by the other plants around them - at least I hope so. At the moment they have been spared to live to grow another day.

Create a ‘Limbusetum’ for impulse purchases

Despite all my careful planting plans I am a sucker for something new, different, interesting and pretty, especially if it is scented - or a tree. At the end of the day I have to admit to being somewhat more of a plant lover than an ‘overall garden look’ lover. But I also know I have to create and grow this space as a successful ‘garden’.

I have now discovered all manner of nurseries, garden centres and ‘gardens with plant shops’ within a one/two hour drive of here and have had enormous fun visiting them, often. As a result I have made a number of impulse purchases. Many of these have gone straight into beds either as permanent or filler plants. But an equal number arrived home without an obvious planting spot. As 'plants in limbo' they were placed in a special ‘waiting area’ in the garden nicknamed The Limbusetum (‘cos it must be in Latin) where they sit in their pots while I study them, think and eventually decide on their fate.

Some of these plants have defeated me and I have given them to other people for example a Vitex Agnus-castus – the Chaste Tree.  I have seen it in its new home and it's looking fab. which makes me very happy.

Others have been planted eg a Heptacodium jasminoides (syn. micinoides) - which is quite rare so it eventually got its own special place, in the lawn, and I am just waiting for its autumn flowering. A Zelgova serrata ‘Goblin’ is now in the ‘oil tank’ bed and a yellow/orange Salvia ‘Golden Wonder’ (x 3 of course) now looks fab in the long border with the red and orange roses.

Above: Heptacodium jasminoides syn. micinoides

And I have also discovered some plants are worth giving a second chance. In Spring, on impulse, I bought three small, evergreen, white flowered Iberis ‘Masterpiece’ which I’d never seen before. But I didn’t plant them. Almost immediately I regretted buying them. They were a bit too upstanding/formal/’municipal bedding’ looking for my taste so they languished in The ‘Limbusetum’ without enough water and started looking tatty. I was about to bin them when I decided to give them a last chance. I planted them around the Styrax japonica ‘Pink Chimes’ and they have prospered, flowered and looked seriously fab ever since. They formed a strong, white, centre to the bed over the Summer which was very pleasing. They are still in full flower now and they don’t seem to need dead-heading, so are great value plants, especially because they’ll be evergreen when the flowers eventually go. Wow. I am so glad I saved them!

Iberis 'Masterpiece' above

Vegetable learnings

Veg took a bit of a back seat earlier this year whilst I was getting the flower borders going but I managed to start tomatoes, red peppers, runner and mange tout beans from seed in the greenhouse as soon as it was built.

Risk some beans

Beans are my favourite green veg and they also deliver height, flowers and a bumper crop from a small space. After hardening them off in the cold frame I began planting them out on 14th May.

There I was, carefully curling the third of them round the 12 attractive hazel stems I’d formed into a frame when Reg (who you know is my lawn cutter, edger and weeding man but who also turns out to be an allotment veg specialist), arrived behind me - it must have been a Thursday.

“Ooh, errh, I wouldn’t be doing that now Rosie. It be a mite early. I’ve not even started my bean seeds yet.” he said in his beautiful Dorset brogue.

“But it’s May!” I protested. “I’m allowed to plant them out in May.”

“Ooozzzh” (a sucking in of air through teeth) “but, there’s more frost a-coming….and winds. Them’ll struggle.” he advised.

As an ex-Londoner I took his advice and stopped planting them out. The rest didn’t go in until mid June, when Reg gave me the nod.

Meanwhile, the three original bean plants remained in the soil. He was right. They struggled. They looked wind-beaten, pale and mankey for about a month - but they prevailed. They are now voluptuous glories, well up and over the top of the frame and feeding me a crop of deliciousness every night. The others are just fruiting and some are still in flower.

So I suppose I have learned it’s worth ignoring local knowledge a bit and taking the risk with a few veg.. However, I hope now to have a succession of beans over the Autumn rather than a glut all at once, so Reg’s advice has actually been a great help. Next year, I shall plant them out at least two weeks apart – but still start in May!

Don’t put courgettes in a small raised veg/salad bed

A couple of weeks or so ago I finally sowed some lettuce/salad, beetroot and turnip seeds in my 6 inch raised bed. They are supposed to be OK sown in August and all are things I love to eat or cook with. Turnips in particular are a much unappreciated vegetable in my book and quite hard to find in supermarkets. They are delicious when fast cooked, small and whole, (especially with gin/) or, when larger, they make a fabulous flavour and texture introduction to almost any slow cooked meat or veg pot.

As an aside, isn’t it interesting that foods fed to cattle are often disdained by the humans in the same country. Turnips were/still are traditional cattle fodder in Northern Europe in the same way Avocado pears are in India.

When I first lived in Mumbai in 1994 it was really hard to buy an avocado in a ‘people’s’ market despite the fact they grew millions of them – because they were grown simply as cattle fodder. ‘Marketeers’ were horrified when I enquired for them. Things changed eventually as more westerners came in and demanded them – and their price soared of course. But the lesson here is that one country’s cattle food can be another country’s delicacy. Cattle food need not be disgusting to humans. And I urge you to re-visit the turnip. You will discover an incomparable flavour.

Anyway, back to the veg bed. I weeded it, raked the special (non Bradshaws) topsoil I had put in, made it beautifully flat and friable, then drew my half inch deep lines, six to eight inches apart along a tool to keep the plantings straight and I was very careful about the seed sowing. After an hour or so of bending I stood and proudly surveyed my newly sown and clearly labelled veg bed. And then it rained all night. Very satisfying!

The next morning I strolled down the garden to revel in it, only to discover that one or more local cats had decided it was ideal cat litter. They had dug, scattered the seeds and labels, and generally messed the beds. Ughhh and aargh!

A week or so later the locally donated courgette and gourd plants (which one simply cannot refuse from new friends) in the same bed became so huge that some of my, now wiggly, seed lines were covered in huge leaves – just as the seeds were germinating. I took a knife to the courgette leaves. Given all this disruption I am praying the newly seeded veg will survive and prosper.

To date this experience has taught me to keep seeded veg well away from courgettes and the like, and possibly that I’ll need to cover the raised bed to keep the cats at bay. Watch this space.

Stick to your colour schemes

Most of the original colour plans have worked out well but I heeled in/planted a few roses too early in the Kennet bed. Pink R. ‘Scentsation’ and pink R. Eglantyne’ are in what is now essentially a ‘hot’ bed.

The peninsular bulge of this (at present my favourite bed/most successful planting) is full of orange Geum ‘Princess Juliana’ which has flowered since May because of all the deadheading, It’s finicky but worth it. These now spill into the fabulously tactile, soft-effect grass Nasselta tenuissima (used to be called Stipa tenuissima - maiden’s hair), which edges the bed.

The peninsular bulge (left) and, in it, Geum 'Princess Juliana', Neselta tenuissima, hemerocalis and Verbena bonariensis  (right)

Beside/around/behind them are tall, thin and elegant Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Emily McKenzie’, tall red and orange Alstromeria (tubers brought from London). They are backed by even taller, purple, Verbena ‘bonariensis’ and tall grasses Miscanthus ‘Silver Feather’, M. sinensis ‘Strictus’ and ‘Ghana’ as well as Pennisetum ‘Red Buttons’, self seeded, silver leaved and opulent purple and dark red poppies, Alium sphaerocephalon and dark purple Dahlias amongst them.

Crocosmia Lucifer (left) and Alstromeria (right)

They are backed by even taller, purple, Verbena ‘bonariensis’ and tall grasses Miscanthus ‘Silver Feather’, M. sinensis ‘Strictus’ and ‘Ghana’ as well as Chleome (purple) grown from seed this year.

Cleome grown from seed and now 2 metres tall

In between are grass Pennisetum ‘Red Buttons’, self seeded, silver leaved and opulent purple and dark red poppies, Alium sphaerocephalon and dark purple, cactus Dahlias.

 Allium sphaerocephalon

This glory of colour and texture then morphs, through three clumps of grass, into a cooler, lighter blue/purple/silver zone of Buddleja Lochinch (with its orange centres), Galega x hartlandii ‘Lady Wilson’, Gemphostigma virgatum ‘Silver Butterfly’, 3 x Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’, and lilac/mauve Tulbargia (Silver Lace and Fair Star), some purple Salvia ‘Schwellenburg’ and then waves back into more Nasselta tenuissima and Pennisetum Fairy Tales and P. Karley Rose, and the hot colours of Hemerocalis ‘Chicago Apache’, Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’, red and orange Dahlias, Rudbeckias in a variety of hot colours, Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ and G. ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ contrasted with a purple Agastache ‘Black Adder’-  so that the very end of the Kennet bed sort of mimics the peninsular bulge in colours and yextures but is a bit lower.

The two pink roses look very out of place amongst all this colour ‘heat’ and will have to be moved. I have identified a suitable spot (behind the swing seat) and will do the deed in Winter after they have finished flowering. They will be planted with two other roses my mother has found which have white stems! (They are a gift from a friend of Mum's and very unusual, as far as I am aware.)

Interestingly, three other pink roses in the Kennet bed (Pretty Lady, The Lady Gardener and R. Glauca) may survive where they are. The first (PL) is pale apricot to start and then goes white. It’s in the cooler, transition, section and seems to work OK. The second (TLG) is an orangey pink and also sort of works though I am not very impressed by her form at the moment. And the Rosa Glauca is really grown for her red hips. She is behind the cooler part and teamed with a red and purple Salvia. Her grey/green leaves go really well with the scheme and, because her small bright pink blooms are so vivid, I think they’ll work where they are next year.

So, overall I am very pretty pleased with the garden in its first year. I have a number of problems which will be dealt with and will be covered in the next blogs. I also need to update you on the pond, its planting and fish, and the building of the bridge; as also on the trees I have planted. These blogs should now come much more quickly than this one did!