Friday November 22nd 2013

A chilly bright day and  there are still more bulbs to plant. Before venturing out into the garden we had some discussion about roses. Bridge has started cataloguing all the roses in the garden and will plan a slide show about the roses in the garden for the new year. The plan is to label all the roses.Check out the current edition of Gardens Illustrated for an article on late flowering roses. One such rose in the garden now is a polyantha rose, Rosa 'The Fairy' which has lovely small pink flowers and a very long flowering season. It is low growing and can be grown in a pot.

Rosa 'The Fairy'

Rose hips can also provide colour and interest in the garden in winter. Rosa omeiensis pteracantha has spectacular thorns which are translucent on young plants and glow bright red with the light through them. Now is a good time to plant bare rooted roses -roses don't grow so well on chalk so you need to ensure you mix in plenty of organic matter into the soil when planting. It is good to put manure around your roses now and give them a feed in spring and again when they flower. We looked at some other plants that are looking good in the garden now:

Clerodendrum Trichotomum

• Clerodendrum Trichotomum - is also known as the peanut butter tree because of the particular fragrance of the leaves. It is an upright deciduous tree or shrub from China or Japan and in autumn it has very striking maroon sepals surrounding blue berries.
• Myrtus communis subsp. tarentina -a small evergreen shrub of dense growth, with small, narrowly ovate leaves, and pink buds opening to white flowers.They can get to 1m tall. Myrtles are evergreen shrubs with aromatic leathery leaves and white flowers followed by fleshy berries.
• Sarcococca confusa (Sweet box)-is a lovely bushy evergreen shrub that can grow to 2m, it has glossy, deep green, leaves and in winter very sweetly scented, small, creamy-white flowers, followed by glossy black berries. This shrub will tolerate shade.
• Himalayan bamboo - we also talked about bamboos. They can be thuggish but can also be kept in check if grown in containers and certain small bamboos can be used in flower arranging. Check out Big plant nursery  website for more information about different types of bamboos.

We also thought about gardens to visit in winter - Bridge will be planning Garden House trip to Anglesey Abbey in Cambridge which is a wonderful winter garden. Also possibility of Friday group outing to Chelsea Physic Garden - perhaps to look at the snowdrop displays early next year.

Activities in the garden this week:

• Further work on border on far side of hawthorn hedge. The plants that have been taken out need to be reviewed and decisions made about what will be put back and what can be divided. Groups of tulip bulbs have now been planted and narcissi bulbs planted under the hedge. The plan is to plant dianthus along the front of the border
• Continue rose pruning along the arches and feed the roses with manure
• Plant up rest of tulips and wallflowers in the cut flower beds - Tulips being planted are Queen of the Night which are deep purple.
• Planting allium bulbs in end bed
• Landscaping area in front of the compost area
• Reviewing state of the wormeries
• Take out and divide the large Libertia goldfinger plants from two containers. The divided  clumps of plant need to be potted on and when the new plants have developed healthy root systems they will be planted into urns on the pillars around the garden. This plant has very attractive variegated green and golden orange striped upright leaves and produces white flowers in spring/summer.

Dividing Libertia goldfinger

New Libertia plants

Sue and Vicky contemplating their task