Show Me Your Garden #8

Today we see the last SMYG of Season 1. I have enjoyed visiting my friends' gardens, it has been an opportunity for me to discuss plants with them when it wouldn't normally come up in conversation. It has also been interesting to visit gardens where there isn't a green fingered person in charge, it has shown me that even though they might not be interested in growing plants or veg themselves, they do appreciate the importance and beauty of having a garden be it for wild life, for teaching or for respite.

Today I show you my garden. My first ever garden. Unfortunately, I will be leaving all this behind as we are moving in a few weeks due to work. While it does sadden me to leave this place, I feel a sense of closure. I started gardening as a response to stress; while I loved my job, the workload was such that I needed an outlet. Additionally, I could not switch off; I was constantly thinking and worrying about work. So gardening, unlike watching TV, kept my hands busy and my head leveled. I think it was E back in the first SMYG who said that gardening was an activity that forced us to dedicate our full attention. Now, I am looking forward to taking on a different challenge and start new projects. I am very excited!

1. How long have you had your garden? 

One year almost to the T. We moved in on 1st August 2014 from living in a one bedroom ground-floor flat. Before then I was a lodger and Boyfriend lived in flats up in Newcastle. I never had a garden when I lived in Spain. To be honest, I never really showed much interest in gardening or plants. My Spanish grandmother had a balcony and she was great at growing flowers in pots. My English grandparents sparked my curiosity every now and then: my granddad would sit me in the kitchen and we would pop peas out of their pods, and my nan made cordial and jams. When my nan was getting too old to care for the garden properly, her sons (my dad and uncles) or the grandchildren would help her by trimming the hedge or mowing the lawn. However, I would say it was my father-in-law who got me truly interested; while living in the flat he gave us a plant. He promised it was easy to keep alive. Then, he gave me another, which was a bit more temperamental but still easy-going. Then he gave me 3 cuttings from a succulent he had pruned, all three survived.

2. Are you interested in your garden? What is its function?

 It has been my laboratory. I have used it as place to see what I like, what goes with what, what veg I can grow, what I can't. It has also been my way to release stress and relax from work. I have loved to sit at the top of the steps and look down on what I have achieved this year. I would have liked to have entertained more but it's not very child friendly as it slopes down, perhaps in garden number 2. 

  3. Favourite plant. 

 It's really hard to say! I have loved the strawberries I have been getting. I have loved my scented sweet peas. The perennials I am taking with me are the santolina (amazing fragrance), jasmine and the heather. I associate this last one with Shropshire,where my father's family come from. Every time we visit we go for walks in The Long Mynd, where masses of purple heather grow. Since my nan passed away earlier this year, having heather in the garden is my way to stay connected to her heritage. 

4. Something you have tried and failed at doing/growing. 

 Dahlias. I bought some tubers that haven't produced any flowers. Then I bought two lovely plants and they have been demolished by slugs and snails. Perhaps I can keep them better when we move, I'm hoping to keep the slugs at bay!

5. Anything you would like to change?

 Perhaps I would make the garden more level. I haven't really been able to have groups of pots because a gust of wind would set them off balance. Had we lived here for longer I might have utilised the top of the garden better. The sun didn't touch for long periods of time, so I couldn't really grow any veg up there. Perhaps I would have built a small pond for wild life. By getting some frogs in my dahlia might have survived!

6. What is your inspiration?

 I want an edible garden. I like to have veg and flowers growing together. I like the idea of companion planting. I have tried this year and succeeded in some things but failed at others. For example, I have seen a lot of white butterflies around and I have been growing kale for the guinea pigs. I can't use netting because of the nature of an edible garden, so I just need to find the right plant that will deter the cabbage butterfly of doing too much damage. My carrots have grown well, as have my potatoes and spring onion. I also love vintage furniture in the garden, I like old farming tools and re-purposing old buckets and containers.

In terms of plants, I tend to stir away from exotic-looking plants. I really enjoy the English countryside, so dedicating a patch to flowers, many of them wildflowers, has been the highlight of my year.  

7. Finish the sentence. You couldn't tell from my garden but... 

 I haven't spent an exorbitant amount of money on it. I have invested in tools and containers, this is true, but seeds are the way forward for veg and annuals!

Weekend project: collecting seed

For the past few weeks I have been collecting flowers that have gone to seed. I have cut off heads (of plants, you understand) and I have spread them out on saucers in the sun so they dry. In doing this I have collected seed from two different types of viola, fritillaria (snake's head), bluebells, delphiniums and a pretty plant, loved by bees that was already here. Last weekend I collected poppy, lavender and sweet pea seeds. I either left the flower heads to dry in situ and then collected them, or I cut them and left them in the greenhouse to dry up with the sun and the heat.

I initially was using normal letter envelopes cut in half or quarters. However, I then wondered if perhaps I could find small (perhaps brown...?) envelopes that would fulfill the same function and be more pleasing to the eye. I came across these from Burgon & Ball and just had to buy them.

Delphinium pods that I left to dry on the plate.

Sweet pea pods that are currently drying in the greenhouse

Lavender seeds being separated from the flower

Poppy heads being left to dry

I don't have a huge number of seeds at the moment, so I keep them all in this wooden box. Perhaps they'll outgrow it soon, though!

Show Me Your Garden #7

This week's SMYG takes us to the garden (and home) that Iy -so we don't get confused with 1st person I- shares with her mother A. I was surprised when I got to the drive, there was a lot of lavender, and different types at that, growing and mostly still in bloom. I was also impressed by the initiative of A to put manure on the front garden. She has about another 12 black bags to use. Iy told me that they have quite a few plans for the garden, so it would be nice to see it in 12 months' time when everything is established again.

I enjoyed talking to Iy about her view on the garden and asking A the questions. You will see there are groups of pots scattered around the grounds, which I loved. Pockets of colour and green in nooks and crannies surprise you in corners. I got the sense that they were very family driven and sentimental; for example they associate roses to Iy's late grandfather who sadly passed away. Iy and I talked about beekeeping, chickens and the traumas we had with wasps and, A particularly, frogs.

1. How long have you had your garden? 
 Personally, 24 years. My parents have had the house for 50 years and so tended to it before me. My father had 2 allotments where he grew veg, and I suppose I get the planting from my mother. It was not a passion initially, it simply needed doing. It was something to do after work. Now I enjoy the process of planting things and watching them grow.

2. What is the purpose of your garden? 
 Decorative. There are some herbs, and we might grow some veg in the future but nothing is set in stone yet.

3. Favourite plant. 
 Roses. My father used to grow them and we had lots all over the garden. Now we only have a couple, but we are going to put at least 6 in soon. We want to scatter granddad's ashes here.

4. Something you have tried and failed at growing / doing. 
 Delphiniums. The slugs get them every time.

5. Anything you would like to change? 
 I would like an improved lawn. I would also like to get rid of those conifers at the back, we would gain at least 5ft of land if we did. I would ultimately love a cottage garden.

6. What is your inspiration?  
 I go with the flow, really. I buy what I like the look of and find a place for it when I get home!

7. Finish the sentence: You wouldn't tell from my garden, but I...  
I am usually very anal and organised! The garden is a mishmash of plants, it's not regimented at all because people have given me or my parents plants over the years and they have a sentimental value attached.

Weekend Project - Improvising support for sunflowers

Growing sunflowers is something I have enjoyed this summer. I planted them from seed, and at the time I would have never thought they would become so tall. Unfortunately, I did not listen to Monty Don and not only did I not stake them with a pole, but I did not even use bamboo canes. Consequently, due to the recent wind and wet weather, plus the height and weight of one of the plants, it toppled over.

I improvised a contraption that, while it is not perfect nor pretty, I am hopeful it will keep the sunflower up right while it flowers and eventually dies. As can be seen in this photo, it bent and severed the stem in the lower half of the plant.

Inspired by those old war films, I thought I might be able to save it if I put some canes around the stem and tied string around it in a such a way that it will not move. It did not quite work, it kept leaning to my left, so I attached some string to the back of the contraption and attached it to the fence to counter-balance the weight. It seems happy for now as it has continued to mature and I can see a hint of yellow. 

 I have learned my lesson, and next time I decide to have these beautiful faces in the garden I will make sure they have support, despite it seeming to do need it.b I'm looking forward to seeing 3 big bright yellow flowers soon.

Show Me Your Garden #6

This week's SMYG takes us back to Spain. This time, we find M in a village in Catalonia. I met M when we were 4, I moved away and then we found each other on the same course at university. Despite her living in the city most of her childhood, in Spain it is typical to have a "village"; if your parents were from somewhere specific, if you had a remote connection to a village or it might just turn out to be where you have a holiday home, you looked forward to going to "el pueblo" for your holidays. M spoke often of her village, and it did not surprise me when, having once again regained contact after university, she told me she had swapped the city for the quiet of village life.

1. How long have you had your garden? 

I’ve been living in this house for three years now, and that’s when we started with the garden and the veg patch. In this area pretty much everyone has either a veg patch or a neighbour with one, so we are used to eating fresh vegetables all the time!

2. Are you interested in your garden? What is its function?

When you move from a flat to a house (I come from a big city, so the change is pretty big) you get really excited about the idea of a garden. Then you decide to start yours so you go to the closest garden centre and discover that everything’s awfully expensive. That’s how we decided to create our garden from different cuttings: rosemary, thyme, ivy, wild roses, etc. Some worked better than others, but we kept trying until we got it right. So the function would be to provide herbs for when I cook, to provide vegetables that are incredibly tasty and to put some colour to our garden with flowers. 

3.Favourite plant.
I suppose my favourite plant in the garden would have to be my geraniums. When winter came I forgot all about them, but come springtime they bloomed as if nothing had happened, not rain, not snow, not hail (and we got all of them!). And of course, I love my strawberries! 

4. Something you have tried and failed at growing. 
Potatoes. One of the problems with our orchard is the sun (and the space available). Potatoes need big extensions of soil to grow properly, so we planted them at the back of the orchard even though we knew the sun didn’t quite shine all day on that area. We got potatoes, but they were small and wrinkled…

5. Anything you'd like to change? I’d love to grow sunflowers. The problem with these is, again, the space. We grew some last season and they bloomed, but they got really long stalks and quite small flowers… I’d love to have more sun in the veg patch as well, but because of the house’s position, it’s quite impossible.
 

6. What inspires you in the garden?  I get inspiration from looking at neighbours' gardens, from magazines, blogs and garden centres. I don’t really follow any design in particular, I just go with what’s in front of me at that particular moment and then I find a place for it in the garden.

7. Finish the sentence. You couldn't tell from my garden, but I...  You couldn’t tell from my garden, but I... am a disaster with plants. Somehow I managed to kill a cactus that was supposed to be the most resistant on Earth, probably. On the other hand I have an anthurium that’s been alive for 4 years now and has survived the change from the flat to the house, so there you have it!