Moving, tying, raking, sowing and paperwhiteing
Hello friends, old and new!
Firstly, thank you to so many of you who signed up to my newsletter after my post on paperwhites for Christmas - you'll find the full lowdown on these beauties below, and I hope you enjoy the rest as well! If you're new here, this is simply a more expanded version of what I'm doing on my instagram stories. Do hit reply and send me any questions or comments - I love talking about this stuff - it's my fave subject!
My five minute gardening forays this week:
Monday: I did some digging up and moving around. This really is the optimum time to move your perennials around if you can possibly manage it. That's because they will have lots of time to make new roots and put on a great display for you next year. I've always been reluctant to do this sort of thing, thinking to myself that there are so many more important jobs to do, but if something isn't happy, or if it's not looking like you wanted it to, then the payoff is just HUGE if you move it (or indeed, get rid of it). Use a garden fork to ease the roots from the soil, shake briefly and plant as soon as possible in its new position. In fact it's worth preparing the new position before you move anything, because if you're anything like me, you won't get around to it, and your poor old plant will die. If you really have to store it though, just scoop some of its earth into a container and roughly push the plant in.
Tuesday: I added some extra wire to the makeshift climbing frame I made a while ago for my Cobaea scandens (pictured above). I sowed these back in February and the two that survived (after my children fell on top of the seedlings) are now clothing both my garden shed and the front of my house. This climber is not fully hardy, which is why you don't see it that much, because it might pop its clogs with a hard winter, BUT it is so very easy to sow, and so fast-growing that I don't find this fact off-putting in the slightest. It is also self-clinging which is a massive bonus for time poor people like me. I'll be sowing some more in February and will do a detailed how-to then. I also began moving some plants. I have two skinny flower beds which were originally there to house climbers for a pergola, but I ran out of money to build the pergola, and have since realised I don't want one there at all, which leaves me with a planting conundrum for these thin beds. I'm considering some sort of hedge, but while I decide I'm going to fill them with more soil (they were never filled properly) and possibly sow some green manure to get the soil really nutrient rich in preparation for planting in the spring.
Wednesday: Still unwell, and I don't feel able to do anything of consequence, so I picked up a few apples and raked a few leaves.
Thursday: It's time to plant paperwhites if you want them on your christmas table. Complete lowdown below. I also ripped out everything in my skinny beds and ordered some hornbeam hedging...quite on a whim, but the beauty of bare-root hedging is that it doesn't cost very much. If you're considering a hedge (or any large shrub/small tree order, then prepare the ground now, and order bare-root plants. They come without the pot (so much cheaper) as soon as the weather cools and the plant goes dormant. Then you just soak the roots, and plant when they arrive. I put a new layer of topsoil on three metres of my skinny beds.
Friday: I sowed some green manure into the bed I cleared yesterday. It's so warm here that I'm not sure when my hedging will arrive...could be December or beyond...so I need something in those beds that's doing some good, rather than just weeds. Green manures are wonderful for areas you don't quite know what to do with yet, because they suppress weeds when they've grown, and they improve the structure of the soil as well as upping its nutrient content. They're used mainly by farmers and allotmenteers but there's NO reason why they shouldn't be used in gardens. Better than letting a load of weeds take hold. I sowed field beans, but there are many options out there, quite a few of which you can sow in the colder months to over-winter.
Five minute paperwhite project
I'm not really into the fuggy sweet-spicy christmas pong. I prefer something fresher...Paperwhites give me this freshness, and the promise of spring to come.
You need prepared daffodil bulbs. They are usually labelled 'paper white' or 'tazetta' and they usually say something like 'for flowering indoors November to December'.
The science bit: These bulbs have been kept in cold storage, simulating winter, and therefore tricking them into flowering early. That's why you often see them starting to sprout when they're in the shops.
I use glass vases for this type of thing, with a pale gravel mulch, which you can buy in most diy shops or nurseries. 'Mulch' is a term used to describe anything that you spread over the surface of compost either to feed it with nutrients, or to keep moisture in. In this case what it means is stones...anything between 5mm to 1cm diameter...could be glass marbles if you like..the choice is yours. You can of course use bulb fibre and your own pretty china pots (I will be doing a big bowl like this next week...stay tuned on stories for that), but if you are a beginner then stones are a good way to go because you can actually see the water level, so there is never any danger of over or under-watering.
Fill your glass vase with the mulch that you have chosen - 8-10cm of mulch is good, and gives the roots enough room to grow. Place the bulbs on top of your mulch. You can cram them in quite closely, just make sure they're not touching. You can now either add more mulch to cover the bulbs, or leave them proud of it. Water carefully so that the water comes up just below the base of each bulb. Now put everything somewhere cool and bright (by a window in an un-heated room) and make sure that you keep the water at the same level. If you want an absolute guarantee of flowers at your christmas table, then stagger your planting, so that you prepare some this week, some next and some the week after. Most paperwhites take 8-9 weeks to flower from planting.
Five minute things I might do next week:
Set up my new hot bin composter...more on this anon
Start chopping my perennials - the ones that are past their prime
mow my lawn...possibly for the last time this year...possibly not.
Thanks for reading and as always, hit reply with any questions
All good things, always
Laetitia x
ps sorry this is all centred and the pics are so hurried... I don't understand the formatting on tinyletter - it makes me take all pics in landscape and it won't let me centre some things and not others...if anyone knows why then do please help me!! ____________________________________________________________________________________
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