The garden is looking distinctly Decemberish – dead ferns and very green mirrors thanks to all the rain. But the heron is glad to shed his green mantle for a few months – and Darby and Joan are still striding out.
Although the grass is now all shorn, the large white hydrangea now a rather dirty pink and the big border a mere shadow of its blowsy mid summer self, life is already stirring. As you can see, the cardoon, which reached a height of well over eight feet and a span of more, is already revving up for next year.
That splendid little acer is doing its winter job, its red and yellow branches glowing on the darkest of days. While the mimosa climbs ever skywards and hopefully will put on a fine golden yellow show for us in a couple of months.
Winter work – preparing for 2025….
Yesterday I went off and bought four large bags of manure and three of bark ready for a couple of days of heavy duty work between Christmas and New Year. Very necessary because…..
On June 22nd next year the garden will be open as part of the National Gardens Scheme!
This is very exciting – and decidedly scary – as the scheme is very particular about what gardens it will accept and has extremely high standards. So it is quite an honour to be allowed to be part of it. Hence all that manure….
My basic garden is now established but I still have plans… The excess rosemary has gone from the big border and I am scanning herbaceous gardening books for some exciting new plants to replace it with; the unsuccessful raspberries in the big pot are moving to the ‘growing garden’ next door (see below) and being replaced by a fig; the very wild area between the compost bins has been partially tamed (eg the rampant brambles and sedge removed) and will hopefully be filled with wild strawberries and comfrey and, later in the summer, asters – and the whole area around the compost bins will be tidied.
More on my plans (and how you can all be involved!) as they develop over the next few months. But meanwhile….
The Growing Garden
I have written before about the allottment sized area at the back of the garage in which we are planning to create a ‘growing garden’ for the Urban Forest Tribe’s SEND children. Raised beds for vegetables, a pond for newts and invertebrates, fruit bushes and trees – and whatever else Michael, our lovely ecologist, thinks we can squeeze in.
We have done a great deal of clearing (the forest of brambles now scarcely dares show a shoot above the ground) and tomorrow we are going to finish weeding, flatten the ground and lay the membrane ready for paths and our raised beds.
The aim is to have the garden up and running, although obviously only in a very early stage of development, by our opening day on June 22nd. Indeed, I think that it was this project that persuaded the NGS that my relatively small garden would be worth opening and would be interesting for people to visit. So, the pressure is on…..
Meanwhile we now have a Growing Garden blog on which we will be charting our progress.
Because you are regular subscribers to Walks on Hampstead Heath and my garden updates, I am taking the liberty of adding you all to the Growing Garden database to receive posts about progress.
However, if you do NOT want to receive these, PLEASE USE THE UNSUBSCRIBE LINK at the bottom of the page of the first post you receive and you will be immediately unsubscribed.
100,000 trees and a threaded forest
We opened our garden under NGS in Wiltshire for many many years. I’m an experienced gardener; also with good knowledge of wildflowers and growing them. We moved back to London coming up for three years ago. Though we now spend a lot of time in France (we have recently bought a house there) I’d be happy to help when around, if needed. Best wishes,
Deborah.
Wow Deborah – that is an offer that I certainly would not be refusing.
I fear that I am basically a garden centre gardener, with very little knpwledge or experience of growing from seed, splitting herbaceous plants, taking cuttings, growing on or any of the basic skills that a NGS gardener I suspect should have. So I am quite shocked by my effrontery in putting myself and my garden out there and any experience and skilled support would be more than welcome.