My gardening diary
MONDAY New Year’s Eve – where has the year gone? Determined to start off on the right foot and make the area around the house look as welcoming as possible, front steps cleared, haven’t got a front door yet but it’s on its way. The first tulips are just showing their noses so their big terracotta pots can be placed either side of the steps.
TUESDAY Until we can find someone to lay our native hedge professionally, we’re pulling down some of the tallest shoots to the horizontal and tying them in. I don’t have the skill to do it myself and as far as I can find out, Marcus Tribe, who laid our hedge for Life in a Cottage Garden, has retired.
WEDNESDAY Pushing brightly coloured cornus stems into a couple of the big square pots which stand at the top of the steps in both Alice and Annie’s gardens. There are martagon lilies in these pots and initially we were going to lift them, but they seem in such fine fettle we can wait for them to emerge later and meanwhile enjoy these cheerful stems.
THURSDAY The hyacinths we planned to have in flower for Christmas are actually showing signs of shooting, better late than never! They’ve been moved inside now and hopefully, eventually we’ll be able to enjoy their perfume. We’ve used just two varieties.
FRIDAY As soon as the weather is mild enough we’ll cover an area of the raised beds with old Dutch lights to warm the soil enough to plant out some of the garlic started off in modules. Though garlic doesn’t mind the cold, in fact it probably needs it, wet soil is a no-no.
SATURDAY The benches in our small greenhouse have heated cables installed. Seriously considering switching on a small bench and trying to get a very early start with some tender perennials. We didn’t have much luck with Ipomoea lobata last year but if we soak the seed and start it off with some bottom heat, we might succeed this year.
SUNDAY When we lived in London the only garden we had was a tiny square. Consequently we grew houseplants but couldn’t resist sowing citrus seeds. When we came down here we had several handsome lemon trees. They didn’t fruit, but flowered and were extremely healthy. They died in a frost but I’m going to try again.