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Sally Nex

Tag Archives: tulips

This month in the garden…

05 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by sallynex in climate change, greenhouse, my garden, this month in the garden

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Tags

cloches, garlic, greenhouse, greenhouse insulation, jobs, leafmould, Musa basjoo, spring cabbage, tulips, winter salads

wp_20161105_14_34_53_pro

Just-planted garlic

…it is getting cold. Seriously, properly cold.

Actually I can’t remember being cold before Christmas before (well, a bit chilly, perhaps, but not cold of the three layers and double socks kind just yet).

We have, I think, become a bit soft in recent years what with all this global warming malarkey. Things may be a little extreme in this respect at my end of the country, around 20 miles from the south coast and never the coldest of places generally.

But since the epic winter of 2010 (when we had about 10 winters’ worth of snow, hoarfrost and ice for a memorable three or four months from November to February) we’ve been lucky to get a frost at all. Last year the lowest temperature I recorded was around 1°C, in February; the previous year we dipped to an adventurous -2°C for one night only. It was hardly the second ice age.

Anyway, all this is by way of saying that this month in the garden I have had to get my skates on (not quite literally but you never know) in a way I have not been accustomed to doing, and do all those getting-ready-for-winter things I’ve previously been putting off till about January. So here’s what I’ll be up to…

Planting garlic I have had a bit of a garlic crisis this year: every last plant succumbed to rust. I am therefore launching an experiment: I’m replanting the bulbs from the garlic which survived the longest, in an attempt to select a strain that copes better with the (now endemic) garlic rust in my garden. I will report back with results.

Collecting leaves There are so many leaves. So, so many leaves. I watched them rain down the other day like a golden snowstorm. And so to work with my trusty rake and wheelbarrow to fill as many leafmould bins as I can before they all run out.

Putting the veg garden to bed The endless task continues: clear crops, cart off to compost heap, weed, mulch, cover, repeat. I am still only halfway down the veg garden and I’ve already run out of soil improver.

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Spring cabbage still going strong after around ten straight months of harvesting

Picking spring cabbage Yes, you read that right: spring cabbage. I planted it last August (that’s August 2015) and it has been going strong ever since, mainly through my laziness in not getting around to pulling it out, so it just sprouts again. A happy accidental discovery: I shall be doing this again…

Clearing the greenhouse The cucumbers are spent; the green peppers picked. Time to strip out the last of the summer crops and get the greenhouse ready for its winter role. I have only one this year, as we’re having to move the other: I am bereft.

Lining said greenhouse with bubblewrap insulation You save around 25% on the average heating bill by insulating your greenhouse, so they say. I know it keeps things much cosier, and often means I don’t have to turn on the heater at all.

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Winter lettuces, ‘White Lisbon Winter Hardy’ spring onions, American land cress and a couple of rows of corn salad and radish seedlings tucked up safely in their plumbing pipe cloche

Planting winter salads under cloches Since I am deprived of my winter salads greenhouse this year I am resorting to planting out my greenery under cloches instead (or rather, one massive cloche made of blue plumbing pipe and clear polythene).

Wrapping bananas The Musa basjoo in the back garden has been going great guns this year, so the plan is to wrap it in the time-honoured way (chop leaves off, wrap in straw and hessian or fleece, big bubblewrap hat) and leave it outside for the first time.

Digging up pelargoniums My scented-leaf pelargonium collection is expanding all the time: I do need to bring it in for winter, though. This year they’ve been in containers on the front steps, making this particular job much easier.

Planting tulips Ah yes: there is some joy to be had this month. This year’s order includes ‘Ballerina’, ‘Jan Reus’, ‘Purple Prince’, ‘Violet Beauty’ and ‘White Triumphator’. I am looking forward to spring very much.

Tulipomania

28 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in design, garden design

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Tags

christopher lloyd, Great Dixter, planting combinations, spring, tulips

tulips4I have tulips dancing before my eyes.

I must have planted a thousand in the last few weeks. Not in my own garden, unfortunately: though I have bought in some more species tulips (my particular passion) and some ‘Abu Hassan’, ‘White Triumphator’ and ‘Ballerina’ to bulk out the main borders, my garden is at the bottom of the pecking order so these will have to wait till I can tear myself away from all the other tulip planting I have to do.

All the gardens I look after have owners who adore tulips, so I am planting them en masse wherever we can fit them in.

tulips2

The chicken garden has huge handsome terracotta pots packed with the things out the front and a cutting garden full of ‘Graceland’, ‘Apricot Beauty’, ‘Belle Epoque’ and ‘Sapporo’; yet still they come. I am in the middle of planting a rainbow of tulip colour through the big rose garden border at the moment: it will look fabulous.

In the Dorset garden I look after there are a couple of borders by the house which I planted up with a mix of tulips as an experiment last year.

tulips1

I had, until I did this, favoured the Christopher Lloyd school of planting tulips: great blocks and swathes of the same variety, fifty at a time about 10cm apart for maximum impact. Visit Great Dixter any time in May to see exactly the effect I’m talking about: it looks stunning.

I’ve done this in my own garden for ages and it does mean you get the full impact of each type of tulip to the max. The only problem is that you get one block of early tulips coming up in late April, then a bit of a green flower-less gap before the next block flowers in early May. Or they overlap and you have a slightly jangly contrast before the next block takes over.

Of course this is probably my own cack-handedness in applying the Christo theory and I’m sure Fergus Garrett would get it right.

But just for fun, last year I tried a combination of tulips of different flowering times in the same place.

tulips3

All were a similar colour palette, but I had groups of mixed early- mid season and late-flowering types to provide a succession of colour from April to June.

Amazingly, that’s exactly what happened. They flowered for ages and were joyous and lovely and full of delight: they reminded me of a packet of Jelly Tots. Which also made me realise just how pretty Jelly Tots are.

We loved them so much we took lots of photos (including those above) and I’ve replanted them almost exactly the same this year (with a couple of necessary close substitutes as the original varieties weren’t available). I’m now seeing if I can come up with similarly lovely combinations to use in my own garden.

I thought I’d share the mix with you: here’s what I planted. It’s not all that complicated: just pairs of early, mid-season and late varieties, all toned in so that when they overlap they look good together. Simples.

Apricot Beauty (Single Early)
Purple Prince (Single Early)
Negrita (Triumph – mid-season)
Spring Green (Viridiflora – mid-season)
Pink Diamond (Single Late)

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