• Home
  • Features
  • Talks
  • Learn with me

Sally Nex

~ Sustainable food growing

Sally Nex

Monthly Archives: October 2007

Plant of the month – October

31 Wednesday Oct 2007

Posted by sallynex in plant of the month

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cosmos, successional sowing

Cosmos “Purity”

This is perhaps the most lovely of all the annuals, a real ballerina of a flower. The whitest of white petals – purity really does describe it perfectly – stretch with yearning up to the sun on wiry stems dancing above the featheriest of foliage. For all its delicacy, this is a tough plant that thrives on pretty much any soil: if you have poorer soil, the stems are shorter and it doesn’t need staking. This one is in my cutting garden, for these make the most spectacular and beautiful flowers for a vase and go with just about anything. It’s such a generous plant, too: the more you cut the flowers, the more the plant produces. I have Cosmos most of the year, as I sow in March for flowers in the usual month of June-July, and do a second sowing in July for flowers still going strong at this time of year. They don’t come more perfect than this.

Saying goodbye

16 Tuesday Oct 2007

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

leaving gardens, woodland garden

One of the occupational hazards of being a professional gardener is that you end up having to say goodbye to people you’ve become very fond of, and to gardens you’ve nurtured and got to know well.

That’s happening to me at the moment – my lovely woodland garden (the one with all the rhododendrons – see here and here… and here…. I’ve been there a long time!) is going to go to another owner. The current owner says he’s moving before Christmas, so I have a month or two yet I think, but it’s a funny feeling – rather than making plans on how to bring the garden forward year on year, I’m now just keeping it tidy and ticking over until the next person arrives. Worse – I’ve become really fond of the current owner, who’s a lovely man and very kind and gentle. He’s elderly, so needs somewhere smaller and more manageable, but I shall miss him.

It’s taken me by surprise how much the people who own gardens reflect on the qualities of the gardens themselves. I’ve looked after just one garden for someone I didn’t get on with – and I didn’t like the garden either. This one was a little sterile and overgrown when I first arrived, but over the year I’ve been getting it gradually into shape so it has more movement and life in it now. In just the same way, I’ve taken time to get to know the owner, but gradually he’s become a friend as well as a client.

Gardening really is about people as much as it is about plants…

Season of mists…

12 Friday Oct 2007

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

chalk soil, leafmould, trees

There’s a definite autumn tinge to the air now. It’s been misty the last couple of days and the leaves are just turning that russety shade of brown that means any minute now we’ll be out with the leaf rakes and collecting what seems like tons of the things.

Which is why I’ve been sorting out the leafmould bins for one of my clients. She has a fabulous big woodland garden, full of lovely mature natives like beech, oak and whitebeams (one of the loveliest trees if you have a chalky soil – it has silver undersides to its leaves). Unfortunately, though she has two massive leafmould bays, they were full of roots and half falling down, so they took a lot of work to get functioning again!

I’m there now though, after a couple of sessions of digging out a mixture of nettle and tree roots and sorting out the rotted stuff – some many years old – from the new leaves which had been dumped on top. Now I have two bays, about 10ft x 10ft (I told you it was a big garden) made of posts driven into the ground with green wire chainlink fencing round it. You need plenty of air in a leafmould bin to make good mould, so things like compost bins, with more solid sides, don’t work: chainlink fences are ideal and last for years, though you have to have strong uprights which are well driven into the ground as the weight of the leaves can be enormous.

Now I have lots of lovely old leafmould to spread as a mulch on her borders. It makes a great autumn mulch as it’s low in nutrients so won’t spur plants on to put out unseasonally tender growth, and it still adds plenty of organic matter to the soil (desperately needed on her thin chalk). One of the many good reasons to have a garden in the woods!

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • September 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006

Categories

  • book review
  • chicken garden
  • children gardening
  • climate change
  • container growing
  • cutting garden
  • design
  • education
  • end of month view
  • exotic edibles
  • France
  • Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
  • garden design
  • garden history
  • garden words
  • gardening without plastic
  • Gardens of Somerset
  • giveaways
  • greenhouse
  • herbs
  • kitchen garden
  • landscaping
  • my garden
  • new plants
  • new veg garden
  • news
  • overseas gardens
  • Painting Paradise
  • permaculture
  • pick of the month
  • plant of the month
  • pond
  • poultry
  • pruning
  • recipes
  • seeds
  • self sufficiency
  • sheep
  • shows
  • sustainability
  • this month in the garden
  • Uncategorized
  • unusual plants
  • videos
  • walk on the wild side
  • wildlife gardening
  • wordless wednesday

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Sally Nex
    • Join 6,908 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Sally Nex
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar