A big decision is made!
A suburban garden in Surrey that uses every inch of space for year-round colour and interest.
We’ve had to make a big decision about the allotment – my husband Barry has been having problems with arthritis in his hands, so we’ve decided to give it up. This means we won’t be able to grow all the usual potatoes, pumpkins and squashes, but I’m sure we’ll still be able to grow enough in the garden for our needs. I’ll limit tomatoes to the greenhouses.
It’s a good feeling when the garden is finally put to bed for the winter and we can look forward to next spring. I’ve been busy finishing planting up all the pots, windowboxes and baskets with mini daffodils – ‘Tresamble’, ‘Minnow’ and ‘February Gold’ – along with primroses, polyanthus, pansies and violas.
I’ve also potted up some tulips. ‘Zurel’, which is a striking purple and white striped, pink ‘Synaeda Amor’, yellow ‘Golden Apeldoorn’, ‘Match’, a bright pink with cream at the base of the petals, and ‘Menton Exotic’, which is fragrant with peach and pink double flowers.
Plants looking good in the garden at the moment are the mahonia ‘Charity’, with its lovely scent and flowers that last for weeks. I always look forward to the gorgeous shiny, purple berries of callicarpa, and this year the fatsia is overloaded with flowers. Looking forward, I’ve planted up the front garden with wallflowers and mixed daffodils, so it will hopefully be full of colour and scent in spring.
I’ve been ruthless in what I’ve decided to overwinter in the greenhouses and have only saved plants in good condition. I was really pleased with the ‘Coachman’ trailing fuchsias I used on our ‘basket’ tree, so I’ve cut them back, defoliated them and hung them up in the greenhouse. Hopefully, by early next year there’ll be lots of fresh foliage to use for cuttings. This worked with the ‘Put’s Folly’ fuchsias, so fingers crossed.
Browsing through catalogues, I’ve been thinking about next year’s bedding displays. I loved the multi-coloured borders, so I’ll repeat them again – just got to choose the flowers now!