Tag Archives: rudbeckia

The Sweet Scent of Success

We are coming to the end of sweet peas in the garden.  They are, to me, a bellwether flower.  Every gardener seems to grow them and anyone who sees ours in the bookshop feels compelled to comment on them, before adding a self-assessment of their own sweet peas; as if the growing of sweet peas is an indicator of one’s horticultural credentials. 

When I think of sweet peas, I think of my mother.  Throughout the summer she would provide bunches to take away whenever we stayed and when, after she died, I started growing them myself it seemed apt that the first flower seemed always to appear on her birthday – 10th July.

Over time, we have managed to bring forward the sweet pea season, but when we were tasked with supplying flowers for “The Wedding of the Year”, on 13th July, I knew we would have to bring our A-game to make sure Verity was not walking up the aisle with just a single sweet pea in her bouquet.

Planning was essential, with seeds bought as early as August last year, and sown in November.  Germination was good, but by January the ranks had been decimated by damping off.  But, as we had sown enough to sink a Russian battleship, the remaining plants ensured we were still in with a fighting chance of producing enough flowers for the summer. 

By March they were bursting out of their pots and storage containers and needed more room outside of the greenhouse.  I used to think that Sweet Peas are not hardy, but they can survive anything down to -4C, so we took a low risk gamble and planted them out.  Despite the wet weather, the first flower appeared on 5th May and by July they were in full bloom, so the job was a good ‘un. 

They have continued to crop heavily until just a week ago.  So heavily, in fact, that the rectangular frame of old gazebo poles and green netting collapsed under the weigh and now resembles the Wembley goalposts of 1977 after celebratory Scottish fans invaded the pitch.

The results were good, but after the planning and the doing, we are now in the reviewing stage and need to plan to ensure even better performance next summer.  Sterilising plant pots could reduce the chance of damping off and continuing to nip out the shoots undoubtedly helped the crop.

As to which varieties to grow, it is clear that some are better suited for cutting than others.  We tried 13 different varieties from two different suppliers (Higgledy Garden & Premier Seeds Direct):

Heaven Scent Mix

Mammoth Scarlet

Parfume Millennium

Parfume White Supreme

Winston Churchill

Beaujolais

Leamington

Painted Lady

Cupani

Starry Night

Perfume Delight

Mammoth

Swan Lake

It is not easy deciding which to buy again.  Success is not marked by sweet scent alone so, for example, although Cupani has a lovely aroma, it has short thin stems, while the Parfume white has wonderful long, strong stems, but is less scented.  Ah, but which to choose?  Perhaps we should decide it in the style of Harry Hill:

“FIGHT!!!”

Preparation & Performance

Spursy Bed still winning Gold

This week I learnt that plans are afoot for the 2022 Open Gardens Day in the village. I have been told the date (confidentially), but as it probably needs to go through the usual committees and organisational debates, I am not allowed to say what it is. But suffice to say, we are all excited here at the Midlife Garden to think that we might be making our debut in the biannual village event. The Open Gardens Day is an opportunity to raise money for charity, while giving villagers the chance to enjoy the gardens of their near neighbours. But we all know what it really is: it is the Village Horticultural Olympics.

With the date set for next summer I was motivated to get going on preparation for big day. Initially, I needed to take stock of the current state of the garden. Is it under control? What has grown well and what has failed?

The mid-season performance review has not been positive. Yes, visitors to the Midlife Garden have been extremely complimentary on the state of the beds but, like a British Olympian crying over gaining a bronze medal instead of a gold, I see failure all around me. The broad beans that I did not tie up properly or keep weeded; the kohl Rabi that got eaten by slugs; and the kale that has struggled under the same onslaught, until I belatedly sunk beer traps. The late and lacklustre crops of cosmos and sweet peas and the negligible numbers of sugar snap and ordinary peas. It has not been a classic year. The review reads like the inquest into British Rowing. Ok, millions of lottery funds leading to five 4th place finishes and a lack of gold medals sounds might sound more serious in comparison to the Midlife Garden – but your opinion would change if you could see how the bindweed has clogged the echinacea or saw the total failure of this year’s Rudbeckia Marmalade.

While underperforming athletes are pointing to tough lockdown training conditions, in the Midlife Garden we have had to contend with the weird weather of a cold dry April, followed by a wet and windy May and then flaming June. Plants have struggled to adapt. But ultimately, I need to take a long hard look at my systems and procedures. I need to improve my funding and support for these plants and apply my experience to plan and monitor performance.

In short: I need to be more like The Old Man. Suddenly his insistence on slavishly doing things to a strict and regimented timetable seems laudable, contrasting with my approach which at times borders on laisser-faire.

But the impending announcement of an Open Gardens Day has provided fresh impetus in my gardening. In my thirties I used to run regularly, but rarely for the sake of getting fit: I needed a goal over and above the simple essential of BEING fit. Which is why I regularly entered half marathons and even one wet and windy marathon in Dublin (finishing time: 3 hrs 43 minutes, thank you for asking). Training for an event was what kept me focused and committed. So now, in a summer in which I have been, at times, going through the motions in horticultural terms, I find I have something specific to plan for, and I need to get going.

So, biennials are frantically being sown (a month late) and more hardy annuals are being purchased for autumn planting. It seems a long way off, but time will fly, and as Auden wrote:

“We are left alone with our day, And the time is short and History to the defeated May say alas but cannot help or pardon”.

New Term

160407 (11)And so here’s the summer, and what have we done? Another Easter over and a new term begun…

Easter is an exciting time of year, with the greenhouse beginning to burst at the seams with seed trays which themselves start to creak under the weight of rapidly shooting plants. The earth is beginning to warm under the longer days of a more powerful sun.

Not that the Old Man thinks that we should be thinking about planting anything out right now – way too cold. And my age is showing as I was in a mind to agree with him.  But Mrs B went on a day course to learn about preparing flowers for weddings (not one in our family I hasten do add) with Georgie Newberry at Common Farm Flowers (author of several books on flower farming – available, as always at Bailey Hill bookshop). Georgie was firmly of the opinion that down here in Somerset we are able to start planting seeds outside as we are not likely to get anything like a major frost. So what do I and the Old Man know about it?

So I will shortly be planting all sorts of exciting things in the garden, but in the meantime I have, over my luxuriatingly long school holiday, managed to plant and germinate a whole host of stuff:

160407 (7)Courgettes (two types), Chillis (three types), Purple sprouting, Brokali, Peas, Sugar snaps and mangetout, Broad Beans, Runner Beans, French climbing beans, Squash (three types), Aubergines, Sweet peppers, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbages, Leeks, Basil, rocket, lettuce and tomatoes.  In addition there are some random seeds that came as a surprise package from the seed company such as celery and melons.  I have also planted numerous flowers to stock our cut flower patch:  zinnias, Rudbeckia, Nicotiona, Cape Daisy, and some marigolds which are being grown to be a companion plants.

We did plant stuff in the great outdoors over Easter getting the potatoes in on time and also onions and shallots.  And this weekend we broke out from the greenhouse by planting the broad beans and sweet peas.  Fingers crossed we don’t get that late April cold snap the old gardeners like to warn us of..

Please throw the ball

 

Season of Lists

Echinacea in the Boomerang
Echinacea in the Boomerang

I’ve rewritten this post about three times as I have tried to get the tone right.  Autumn has always been to me a time for reflection though in my younger years it was enlivened by my birthday in October which would be closely followed by Guy Fawkes night and then on to Christmas.  These days another birthday is of little consequence – although the arrival home of Verity for my birthday was a wonderful surprise.  This, sadly, was tempered by the premature passing of my cousin Dave at the age of 55, which put me back into reflective mode.  Attending a funeral of one of our peers reminds us that there is no point in hanging about – life is out there and it is not waiting for you so it was apt that two days later Mrs B was running 10 miles in the Great South Run to celebrate her own good health three years on since Lymphoma and stem cell transplant.

Squashes - not too large
Squashes – not too large

So as the clocks go back and the nights draw in one must be thankful for one’s blessings and to look forward, which is exactly what one does in the garden, as we start planning for next year.  We have been designing a new border, planting out Sweet Williams and other perennials, and planting garlic.  We have also cleared the last of the squashes (much smaller than last year for some reason) and harvested the last of the green peppers and aubergines – which were also disappointing in size and number.   So we will be looking to rectify what might not have gone right this year and trying to add new and different aspects to the garden.

Halving the irises in the Silver Wedding
Halving the irises in the Silver Wedding

So, as I had a couple of spare days at half term I took time to make the extension to the Boomerang bed.  Not sure what to call this…the didgeridoo?  I shuffled plants in the Boomerang and the Silver Wedding, putting the Veronicas together in the former and splitting the irises in the latter (hard work, that one).  I surprised myself by how many plants I had for stocking the bed:  as well as the Rudbeckia Marmalade and leftover Sweet Williams that we had grown from seed, there were a whole bunch of perennials that I had acquired as a bargain plug plant offer last year, and a lot of them have been doing nicely up by the top greenhouse over the summer and look ready for planting out now.  It’s almost like a planned it all along.  It was potentially back-breaking work, but immensely satisfying.

The great summer of 2016 starts here (or at least the planning does).

 

Dead Air

Retaking territory after the weeds
Re-taking territory after the weeds

It rained yesterday.  Bucketloads.  Which was a good thing.  Not in the “It’ll do the garden good” kind of way, because the garden is plenty wet enough thanks.  No – it gave us the excuse to stay indoors and watch the battle of Good v Evil which was how the World Athletics Championships had been billed.  Having had the brilliance and farce / tragedy of the women’s Heptathlon as Ennis-Hill ruled supreme and Johnson-Thompson fouled out (tragically? stupidly?) we had the Bolt v Gatlin race for the soul of athletics.  The whole eternal battle thing was a little over the top, but it was pleasing to see the Good Guy beat the one wearing the metaphorical black stetson.  Usain rode off with gold on his golden Palomino.

Raspeberries are secure
Raspeberries are secure

After that breathless excitement it was time turn to our own Midday in the garden of Good and Evil.  There is plenty of decent stuff in the garden – such as my nice new fruit cage that I have manufactured out of the twisted remains of the gazebo that took a battering in the June gale, and the flowers that we planted are still blooming:  Cosmos are brilliant, Rudbeckia tall and proud, Gladiolae still glad to be gay and Veronica small but perfectly formed.

There are plenty of veg, if one looks hard enough:  courgettes ranging from petite to XXXXL, green beans, runner beans and dwarf french (although the climbing french for some reason have simply whithered on the cane).  Plenty of potatoes, summer psb, and spicy, peppery salad leaves.

Eggs have hatched
Eggs have hatched

But there is still a constant battle of Good and Evil here too.  The cabbage whites have managed to lay their eggs and we now wage war with the caterpillars which have stripped some plants clean.  The leeks which we planted before we went away, were razed to the ground within 24 hours so we raised the barricades for them and they seem to have recovered.  The lawn (well, grassy area) has more patches than a quilters’ convention with splodges of bare earth dotted all over showing a  constant reminder of mole activity.  And the roses have once again been given the sign of the black spot with death and decay to follow.  Not even the greenhouse is immune where the ants nests are abundant despite the ants always seeming to take to the air (I thought they all flew on one day and that was it?).  I am not sure how much damage they actually cause, but surely they cannot be helping?

But despite the dead air of the greenhouse there is still some promising news with the first two tomates finally making it to the table – about three months after the gardening giants of Galhampton had started cropping their wonder plants.   Ours will taste all the better for the wait – or at least that is how I try to argue it with Mrs B.