"January brings the snow, Makes your feet and fingers glow"
Thursday, January 29, 2015
I have been writing News Articles for the website since March
2010. Not a month goes by when I don't worry about the Headline for
each item. Writing a catchy title does not come easily to me and if
you want proof just look at some of the less than exciting titles I
have given to most of my talks! I often resort to favourite poets
for inspiration and it is a fact that I cannot begin to compose the
article unless I have a title fixed in my mind - surely not the way
to do it but it works for me.
January brings the snow!
However this month's was a piece of cake - just pinch a couple
of short lines from Flanders and Swann's epic "A song of the
weather". To hear the song enter Flanders and Swann in your
search engine and it can be found on You Tube. If like me you are
over 60 you will surely be familiar with their witty words
(Flanders) and catchy tunes (Swann). A quick internet search
just to check the words turned into something more - it was not a
wholly original piece of work. The lines originally came from a
work by Sara Coleridge in her poem "The Months" written in 1834. I
shall use a few more of these whenever the muse is not with me!.
She was the daughter of the famous poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner etc). It doesn't end there however
as it appears there at least 2 other versions of the poem entitled
"The Garden Year" and "A Calendar" perhaps updated versions from
unattributed sources with children in mind. If you are starting to
wonder where all this is going it is a rather poor attempt to
provide copy when there isn't much to report this month!
Weather
This has undoubtedly been the highlight of the month with
such varied and interesting weather "events" (don't you just hate
that expression when used by the TV forecasters?) . Early on it was
mild but often wet, then from the second week onwards increasingly
colder and windier with severe frost, thunder, lightning and the
first appreciable snow for 2 years which lasted for a week. I don't
often wear gloves but whenever it was fine enough to work outdoors
they were an essential item of clothing together with multi layers
of coats. 11 nights below zero min -8C on 19th and a max of 11.8C
on 10th. In December there were 15 nights with a min. below zero.
Lowest temperature -8C
Oak trees in the midst of a blizzard
This wonderful bell of ice formed on a field gate
suspended by nothing more than a cobweb
And this was the frost pattern on the glass roof of the
verandah on the same morning. Frosted glass but not as we know
it.
Garden update and what's looking good
There is so little that is looking good so I have combined the 2
together. Early in the month hellebores, cyclamen coum and
snowdrops were well advanced and there was hope of a very early
show but the cold weather brought this to a shuddering halt. Here
and there in sheltered pockets there is some colour but plenty more
still to come.
Nothing has looked better than the ice on the dead
seedheads of sedum "Brilliant"
Sparse flowering in the Beech Hedge Walk our main
winter flowering border
A superb anemone centred hybrid hellebore with
enlarged petaloid nectaries. 12 years old it is one of the first to
flower every year
A good blue/purple hellebore from my own
seed
And a green double from Farmyard Nurseries of
Llandysul
Attractive leaf patterns on this cyclamen coum
under the beech tree
There has been enough dry weather to get on with a range of
jobs from my long but rapidly decreasing list. I have done a
lot of tree and shrub pruning on top of what the tree surgeons did
before Christmas. Decayed timber edgings to some of the borders
have been repaired, nursery benching rebuilt and a few borders in
the house garden, including the shrub rose border, have been cut
back. With the nights getting lighter all the time I can work
outside now until 5.30.
All the prunings from this winter's cutting back and me
contemplating with relish a good bonfire!
And clearing out a blockage in the inlet from the
stream to the Paddock Pond I removed this 4 foot congested mat of
willow roots from the tree behind me.
The warmth of the tunnels make them a sought after refuge and
there is plenty to do there already. There is always potting on to
do and the seed sowing has started in earnest with over 100
varieties sown, some in late autumn but most since the beginning of
the month. Sweet peas as is the tradition here are always sown on
the 18th, easily remembered as the day I started work exactly 50
years ago.
I tell myself every year to be more disciplined and sow less but
with in excess of 50 varieties of seed gathered from the gardens,
60 from the HPS, Chiltern Seeds large order still to come and all
those others from a variety of sources plus vegetable seeds there
is still a long way to go! And as scarcely a day goes by when
another seed or plant catelogue doesn't pop through the letterbox I
don't think I am finished yet -and I still have my eyes set
on yet more lilies for long term plantng in the borders.
I have had a fascicularia bicolour in a 10 litre pot for 16
years. It was absolutely solid in the pot and I have put off
splitting it for years. Although it still flowered spasmodically
the plant was c;early stressed so the time had come to split it.
All the advice on the web and in garden books was just to break off
the side shoots and repot them. If only it were that simple.
Firstly I had to split the pot into which the plant was growing,
then when it was off to divide the plant because there was no way
the side shoots could be broken off. The following items of
equipment were employed to do this, all to no avail: Sharp Japanese
all purpose knife, jungle machette, hand saw, garden forks back to
back and spade. In desperation I turned to the ultimate weapon,
briefly contemplating the chain saw in the shed on way to get the
mattock. This trusty tool has been the solution to all kinds of
intractable problems and once again it came up trumps. All this
took almost one hour!! Not pretty but highly effective and it
resulted in 6 strong divisions to be grown on - I hope they survive
such radical surgery.
There is however a word of caution if you ever encounter this
situation - do not do it with bare hands as I did! As I said I
rarely ever wear gloves in the garden and by not doing so, I did
pay the price! Although fascicularias are spiky I dont find them
that painful to handle, but next day my hands were pock marked
where the spines had penetrated the skin.
There is some scent on milder days from sarcocccas, lonicera
pupusii "Winter Beauty" and hamamellis "Diana" which is always
welcome in the depths of winter, and talking of scent just a few
viola odorata flowers under the willow aslant the Paddock Pond,
when the slugs leave them alone.
Sarcococca confusa
Lonicera x purpusii "Winter Beauty" now growing well
after a slow start. It is currently 3 feet after 6 years but should
eventually get to about 9 feet
Finally on to vegetables. All the stored vegetables in the frost
free shed are keeping well, and it is amazing when you store
potatoes how much better the taste and texture is of some of them,
especially Desiree and Charlotte, a second early salad type
which is sweeter and nuttier now than when harvested fresh in July.
A real revalation has been Blue Belle which I grew for the first
time this year. Good blight and slug resistance, a reasonable crop
of creamy but but firm fleshed tubers which nevertheless make
superb mash, jackets and roasters. In the open ground,leeks are
holding well and as always cabbage "Tundra" has proved to be
reliable and very cold hardy. A January King type, "Meribel" from
Marshalls is firm with purple outer leaves and sweet, tender inner
leaves that cook in a matter of seconds and a nice size for two
people.
Wildlife and countryside
Nature is definitely sleeping as winter creeps. Just some
occasional birdsong on fine mild mornings and tawny owls calling
from the horse chestnut by the house after dark. I did however see
a snipe walking in the road outside the Lodge, a very strange
habitat for it (but there is a stream running along the road) that
initially made identification difficult but by the time I came back
with the camera it had just flown off with that charactersitic zig
zagging flight over the fields. They used to be fairly common here
over 20 years ago as did curlews and lapwings, but all are now,
sadly, very rare. And where have all the hares gone?
No frogs as yet in the Paddock Pond but patches of jelly on the
bank suggest that some are on the move.
Early lambing has started but as most local farmers now pen
their breeding ewes in barns when they have lambed, you don't see
any in the fields for a few weeks. Hopefully some pics next month,
something that always lifts the spirits, together with the first
daffodils.
Visits
One garden club visit this month to St Clears for a Question
Time which was one of the most testing I have done. Some great
questions and good audience participation made for an enjoyable and
successful evening.
Next month there are more talks and the annual Llandysul Winter
Gardening Weekend on 20th, 21st and 22nd. I am speaking on Growing
Vegetables at 1.00pm on the Saturday which is always a popular and
well attended session. For more details go to www.llandysul-ponttyweli.co.uk
A talk on vegetables is the topic of choice of most clubs I
will be visiting during February and March.
Just for a change I had a walking outing to the Hafod Estate
near Pont-rhyd-y-groes in north east Ceredigion, 600 acres of
woodland and the wild rushing waters of the River Ystwyth and all
its many tributaries cascading down a narrow gorge. Jointly managed
by the Hafod Trust and Natural Resources Wales it has 10 miles of
well marked paths through woodland with large trees, moss covered
stones and banks, wonderful ferns and wood sorrel, and countless
water cascades and falls. Some paths are steep and precipitous but
are well made and quite safe with care. I managed just 3 miles in
the time that I had before the night descended but I shall
certainly return to explore more of this magic place. For more
details go to www,hafod.org
The River Ystwyth in serene mood as it meanders through
a wide valley above the gorge
And then it thunders down the valley being fed by
several tributaries on the way
The effect of constant water erosion on the stones at
the side of one of the waterfalls - no artist could conceive such
complex beauty
