Leaves

It has been beautifuly warm this week with a little bit of sunshine here and there. Perfect weather to show off the peak of autumn colour just before a big temperature drop and proper winter sets in. In essence, this time of year is all about the leaves.

There are the ones on the trees, red maples, like this one in one of my gardens, and bright yellow field maple and hazel dotted along the country lanes as I travel around to work.

Cotinus

This Cotinus, probably Cotinus coggyria Royal Purple, looked stunning backlit by the morning sun, was in another customer’s garden.

They look amazing on the trees, but then they fall. When they first come down, leaves can look pretty good on the ground too but they are not great for lawns, where they block out the light to the grass and they are not so welcome on paths and driveways where they become a sticky, slippy mess and get trampled into the house.

Beech

Luckily I only have one garden where I rake leaves, the others have someone else with the proper equipment or they deal with them themselves. I don’t mind leaf raking, it’s good exercise and it keeps me warm.

The start of the raking

More leaves!

This is a pretty traditional garden for an old lady and I suspect the system has been in place for a long time. The leaves get raked up and narrowed to the leaf pile in the corner.

Leaf pile

A few weeks ago I forked last year’s pile over the wall at the back into the bay behind

One year old leaves, with a few new ones from the beech above.

The pile that was here, so two years old, has mostly been spread on the garden borders but there’s a little bit left and it looks like this.

It’s a bit lumpy because of the conker shells, all the conkers have to be picked out because they tend to grow.

When I look up and all the leaves are gone, it’s a good moment because the leaf raking has taken place over several visits but now it is done for the year and time to leave the leaf pile to work it’s magic.

And this is where I walked!

New Year Catch Up January 1st 2020

Hello, Happy New Year! It looks like I need a bit of a catch up as I haven’t posted for a while. Writing on my phone proved a bit tricky, I thought that I could write it throughout the month but the photos kept deleting, and it is a very small screen. I’m going to do a quick summary of November and December because I did still take photos.

November

 

November carried on in the same spirit as October being mostly wet and grey. There was a bit of autumn colour creeping in.

I picked the final dahlia flowers and moved the tubers in to the greenhouse to dry off.

I tried to make leaf raking more interesting.

Seedlings and lettuce plants in the poly tunnel, doing well but needing some attention.

On the 19th November we had a frost and some actual sunshine.

The broad beans came up.

It rained again and the river got quite full.

At the end of the month, I saw violets, mahonia and periwinkle flowering in a customers garden.

 

December

Chicory in the vegetable garden.

I took the family to see the Helmingham Hall illuminated garden trail just up the road. It was fantastic!

Did a massive pond clearing job with a customer and man with a chainsaw.

It got really wet in the gardens but I still managed to harvest parsnip and cabbage.

Bulbs coming up. These are Leucojum, spring snowflake.

I can to cancel the last day’s work before my Christmas break because the road was flooded.

Visited the allotment to pick parsley for the stuffing.

 

I had high hopes of getting on in my own garden over the holidays but I have only done a very small amount of potting on in the polytunnel and brought some of the pelagoniums into the house. I haven’t even planted the sack of tulip bu;lbs yet. It is still vey wet underfoot although we have had a few dry days. I have a lot of seeds that I can’t wait to plant and I have flowers to grow for a wedding in the summer which I am most excited about.

 

Looking Back

New year seems a good time to look back on the last twelve months of gardening. I started at Kenton Hall in January 2018 so this presents itself as a perfect opportunity to look at the changes over a year of extremes. Unfortunately I don’t have any of the snow as I didn’t go that week! The gardens of Kenton Hall provide a stunning location for weddings in the summer months and my job was to keep them up to standard.

January

 

It seems so long ago! I can remember being very cold and the first day that I did here there was a heavy rainstorm. I could see it coming but it was my first day and I didn’t want to give up until it was raining badly enough. I got soaked through to the skin. So what was here was overgrown shrubs and herbaceous perennials. I love a challenge!

February

 

Getting stuck in. Cutting back everything, perennials, grasses and shrubs, including evergreen ones as much as I dare, just so that I can see what is there.

April

 

Things start greening up. The primroses look fabulous along the moat.

May

The first wedding of the season was in May so lots of weeding in preparation, fortunately the owner does the hedging and grass as there is a lot of it. The house provides a stunning backdrop for photos, and the lupins came out, hurrah!

 

July

 

 

The beginning of the heatwave. The borders are full and the grass is just about hanging on. Flowering now Stipa gigantia, catmint, Achillea cloth of gold.

 

August

 

Still looking green, the main flower here was the almost complete bed of Japanese anemones but also shrubby potentilla and the grasses were looking good. I had been coming regularly, but not that frequently, mainly in the week before each wedding.

October

 

The wedding season had finished now, and I had started to cut back the finished flowers. A lot of plants were just getting to their best, especially the asters (michaelmas daisies) and fuchsia. The leaves were starting to fall off the trees at the back.

 

 

November

 

You can see that whereas mid afternoon in summer is still scorching hot, at the same time in November the shadows are really lengthening and the light is fading.

 

The seedheads did look good in the golden sunlight, they are still there, and there were a few late flowers on the lupins having a second flush. Feeling a bit more in control of the square borders, I got a chance to work in the rose garden and found a Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles in full bloom.

December

Almost full circle and back to a very wintry looking garden and a late flowering rose. January will start with less cutting back and shrub shaping to do than last year so maybe a chance to divide some of the perennials and make the beds more of a mix. At the moment there are big blocks of colour which look effective but then all die back at once.

It goes without saying that I was easily distracted by the beautiful house and trying to get it in the pictures. There are also views over the surrounding countryside.

For wedding venue details and photos I would suggest the website, link in first paragraph, or the Instagram account @kentonhallestate.

November, a month of change.

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Happy November! #leaves #autumn #garden #leafpile

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 1, 2017 at 1:31am PDT

It’s hard to believe, as I sit here with snow falling in the freezing night sky, that at the beginning of the month the leaves were still showing autumn colours, both on and off the trees, and there were some late flowers in the borders. It really has been a month of change, illustrated perfectly by my instagram photos.

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I tried to take pictures of fireworks but they are all of the streaky kind so here are some grasses at a customer's garden this week. They are kind of fireworky!

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 5, 2017 at 2:44pm PST

Autumn is a good time for grasses, the more showy flowers have faded and the low light seems to bring out all the golden and bronzy colours. On a misty morning they look stunning decorated in a myriad of sparkling dewdrops.

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Sunshine through the Phormium leaves on a frosty morning. Yesterday.

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 7, 2017 at 3:29pm PST

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbJbDvWjz68/my

Right at the beginning of November we had the first frost, you can just see it on the grass in the background. Frosty mornings led to bright sunny days and I still couldn’t really believe that winter was on the way. See First frost!

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Japanese anenome still flowering last week.

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 10, 2017 at 11:28am PST

Then it warmed up a bit, well no frosts anyway, and flowers continued to bloom.

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And this is today, in a momentary burst of sunshine. #garden #gardening #sunshine #november #echinops #globethistle #stillflowering

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 14, 2017 at 3:13pm PST

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This was out yesterday! #poppy #november #garden #gardening #flowers #autumn #remembrance

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Really not sure what this poppy was doing out in November but it shows how (relatively) warm it was.

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Echinacea #echinacea still in flower min November.

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 16, 2017 at 2:59pm PST

This Echinacea was coming to an end but still looking beautiful in the cloudy but mild, middle of the month. And a bit wet by the looks of it.

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Proper frosty start! This should see the last of those leaves fall to the ground for the grand finale 🍁🍁🍂🍂🍁🍂🍁🍃

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 17, 2017 at 12:40am PST

At this point there were still lots of leaves on the trees and lots of colour and it felt very much like autumn. I  started to think about what I could move and divide before the soil got too cold,  and cutting back and raking leaves were the main jobs in the garden.

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Today in the garden, warm but blowy hence the blurry photos. Hollyhocks and salvia flowering late, grasses in the sunshine. Fatsia. Viburnum bodnatense Dawn signalling the onset of the next season. Not necessarily in that order! #garden #gardening #flowers #autumn

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 22, 2017 at 2:19pm PST

Hollyhocks hanging on til the last, but look at those shadows. If you want to see the rest of the photos on that list check out my instagram feed!

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Autumn last week.

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 28, 2017 at 2:45pm PST

This was taken on the 23rd November, the last week where I actually warmed up as I worked. I love those soft colours.

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Cornus midwinter fire (probably)

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Nov 30, 2017 at 3:11pm PST

One week later, this week, wind from the north, no leaves left after a windy few days, but still a bit of colour. And two hats, two hoods to keep my ears warm.

The east coast of Suffolk got quite a bit of snow today, 30th November, but we only got enough to settle this evening, hence the poor picture, but showing the transition from autumn at the beginning of the month to proper winter at the end.

First frost!

Chard in the frost

We had the first proper frost here in Suffolk this week and it took me by surprise  Only the day before I was planting out some broad bean plants and taking cuttings from a rescued houseplant in my polytunnel. It’s one of those small ones by Gardman but it serves me well.

So, after scrolling through an instagram feed full of ‘first frost’ pictures I headed out myself to check on my poor, unsuspecting plants – and to take photos!

The sweet peas, which I had put out of the polytunnel, to harden off, ha ha, seemed to be fine and the cuttings inside were luckily in the propagator and also ok I think. They will need to be relocated to a windowsill very soon.

At my first garden, in the still open greenhouse plants still looking green. Sorrel seedlings, ✅, Salad leaves in the greenhouse bed, ✅.

The broad beans, which I planted in September also nice and perky.

What I am really hoping is that the caterpillars, which have decimated the cavalo for the second time this year, are not ok!

Some dahlias are still flowering.

Moving on to the borders, it seemed a good time to lift the dahlias and tuck them up for the winter. They are now all in the greenhouse beds where the tomatoes were. The greenhouse is on the side of a brick building and I think that this makes a difference in keeping the soil above freezing. The bricks heat up in the day time, even with a small amount of sunshine, and radiate it back at night like a storage heater. I also keep the soil completely dry. This has worked well the last few years although we haven’t had any prolonged cold weather for some years now.

Dahlias in their winter bed (I will cut them down).

This is really a bit of a luxury. At my next garden I dug up the tubers, cut them right back and put them in a large pot filled with old compost from empty summer pots. They are now in the shed although if it gets really cold, below zero for several days, I will move them to the garage. Obviously there were a lot less tubers just 3 plants.

My dahlias at home are mostly still outside and will have to take their chances until I have time to sort them out. I have a few more this year and am considering borrowing a bit of greenhouse space from the first customer.

Gardening Queen!

My first season growing vegetables and flowers for a country pub.

It started in November 2015 when I was asked to clear these planters and start the process of growing edible flowers for use in the pub kitchen. Herbaceous perennials were dug out and stored in pots and evergreen herbs, violas and primroses were planted to take us through the winter. I can’t take all the credit, I did the digging but the owners supplied the plants and installed mini obelisks with fairy lights in each one.

Fast forward to April 2016 and it’s still raining! The pub has a new sign (and name) and the plants have grown a little bit.

Meanwhile round the back plans were afoot to create a vegetable garden to supply the pub with extra special, very local, produce. And it has really been a bit of a learning curve for all of us.

This is my first view of the site, previously a grassed area, and the beds going in. The path through the middle leads to a camping area and shepherds huts for hire so I chose varieties that looked good as much as what would be useful in the kitchen. Well that was the idea anyway.

Before the beds were even fenced, I planted some cavalo nero plants and believe it or not they are still going in November having been picked consistently throughout the summer. Definitely going to try that again!

The beds were finished and rabbit fenced and all I had to do was fill them! Twelve beds in total although one is a permanent rhubarb patch.

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I started with lots of pretty salads, beetroot, rainbow chard and rocket all protected by mesh from the pigeons. My favourite find was saltwort which really has a samphirey taste. The season progressed with potatoes being planted as well as  peas (total failure), beans, tomatoes and pumpkins (biggest success literally!)  and mixed courgettes.

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As I write this in November, there still chard ready to pick with purple sprouting broccoli and leeks to come. Next year, I plan to have  bigger batches of each crop and better successional seed sowing. I am also starting work on a foraging bed.

Meanwhile out the front, the violas, nasturtium, borage and calendula were all amazing and the herbs grown from seed are getting established.

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We now find ourselves at full circle and I have just planted violas again for this year’s  winter colour. It turns out that there is a great variety of flowers which can be eaten  so watch this space for what I grow next year!

Also for another blog, what happened to the old perennials dug out of the planters as they were put to good use.

November-It’s cold!

 

 

Well it’s happened, we’ve reached November and it’s turned cold. With rain forecast for the afternoon and a sunny morning outside I didn’t need much persuasion to don my many layers of work clothes and spend a few hours in my own garden.

There is still quite a bit of colour in the garden with the yucca making a statement in the front and fuchsias and cosmos providing the view for the back windows.

Today I cleared the tomato plants from the polytunnel to make space for the dahlia plants in pots that are way past their best and vulnerable to frost.  The chillies are still going and looking good so they will stay for a bit. The only other thing in the tunnel are my penstemon cuttings of which I am immensely proud.  I followed a youtube clip to learn how to do tip cuttings and they have done very well.

My other priority was to cut back the michaelmas daisies which had practically finished and we’re flopping over the main path. I also managed to dig a small part of the vegetable garden and plant salad seeds in a container in the tunnel. Probably a bit late but worth a go for a chance of a few baby leaves for my sandwiches.

And I got it all done before the rain started!