Irreconcilable Differences

Spring in my last garden.

We live a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, mostly due to work.  Our houses've been chosen for us by other folk, all of them people who love beautiful homes but don't really garden.

Remarkably, I've been given some great spaces.

We've never stayed long enough for me to complete my grand vision of the moment.  But then, maybe gardeners never finish their vision.

In spite of these arranged marriages, in spite of whatever lessons & challenges the gardens themselves put in front of me, I loved them all.

Until now.






I first saw our current garden on the day we moved in.  Originally a double lot, its Edwardian designer had been uninspired.  In the 21st century, someone bisected the garden with a fence - house, garage, & surrounds on one side, uninspired beds & paths on the other.  At a later date, they got notions of building the Great Godawful, so put up another fence, with the house & surrounds taking up 2 thirds of the half & the garage part taking up a third.

Don't hurt your brain over my reckless use of fractions.  It'll make more sense in the photos. 

The neighbours defeated the planning permission, but the dissection of the garden remained.

Mlle DoodleFace as a puppy 2 gardens ago.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled.

Hating my garden is as ill-fitting as hating my dog, a crime against nature.

But because we're moving, because this garden will soon not be mine, I can rend garments, gnash teeth & roar the myriad sins of this place.

Confined to a respectable 6, of course, for my present audience.




1.  A place divided.

Not long after we moved in, my family quietly went behind my back (lest I be disappointed) & asked if, since planning permission had been denied, could we have the whole garden.  The landlord said he'd only lift the fence that separated the house & surrounds from the garage, adding the caveat he could put it back with a month's notice.

Which meant leaving the concrete posts.  I put up an arch to insinuate the post line was intentional, artistic even, then wrapped the concrete in chicken wire to grow sweet peas & the errant self-seeded old man's beard.  

From the house toward the fence.

No amount of sweet pea can cover that much ugly.

From the fence toward the house.

2.  The Forgotten Trio - 2 apples & a cherry

These guys've featured here before - I'd hoped one of you would say this was a quirky British fruit tree technique.  Y'all disappointed me on that one.

In the photo above, you can see how closely they're planted to the post line.  Remember that for later.  

The Trio w/Mr Big Nose in the background.

I suspect these three were heeled in & forgotten.  I sometimes wonder who bought the trees, who heeled them in.  Were they an unwanted gift left to languish or a project abandoned by death or relocation? 

However the Forgotten Trio got here, the solution is obvious.  Fortuitously, as tenant, I'm exempt from killing trees. 

3.  Elder vs Acer

Long before the Trio arrived on scene, someone planted an absolutely gorgeous acer under the yew.  All was well until an elder seeded itself between them.  As the elder grew up, the acer grew horizontally until it joined hands with the Forgotten Trio of fruit trees.

I've been hacking at the elder in stages (CFS, remember), hoping to reduce it to the skinny vertical wands (also remember, hates to kill trees).  Once it wakes up for the summer . . . even if I'd managed to vanquish the elder, it'd take years for the acer to reclaim it's natural form, if indeed that were possible, considering the age of the thing.  The prognosis here is dismal.

Acer under the Elder burden.

  

4.  Walls do not a home . . .

So, remember how close the Trio is to the sweet pea post?  The marriage of acer & Trio give that part of the garden an 'interior wall'.  The rooms formed by the cement line & the 'interior wall' are each one twelfth the size of the original Edwardian space.  They contain trees & a short hedge.

So, not cosy pub snugs, but cells.

The house & surrounds side of the posts is basically paved pathways, brick outbuildings & small borders.  We have a garden, but not even the dogs want to hang out in it.

O, for the days when Big Nose & I hung out in the orchard 4 gardens ago.

5.  The Wisteria/Apple Tree battle.

Some people are less than fond of (hate) wisteria, but the vines I've lived with were always well behaved, so also well cherished.  And who doesn't love an apple tree?  So, is there a complaint here?

Moriarty & Holmes going over the waterfall.

When we moved in, the wisteria foliage not only smothered the apple tree, its growth whips formed a woven mat across the lawn, up the yew, even squiggling inside the garage windows.  (Those aren't dead limbs on the ground, but wisteria tendrils creeping, creeping, creeping toward me dreaming in my bed.)

I gave it a late pruning & hoped for the best.  Both tree & vine lived & bloomed.  The wisteria got its midsummer pruning, plus we had apples enough for everyone.  But as Fred, a French Gardener pointed out, either the tree or the vine will die first.  What happens to the survivor?

The wisteria got pruned on time this month, but realistically, this is a several year project which I know will not be continued because of the . . . 

6.  Mind boggling neglect.

This garden languishes because no one thought about it for years.  When that happens, this happens:

The Burgeoning Heap.

Taking over such a neglected space, I'd enough brambles et al without battling the Burgeoning Heap on the other side of the fence.  The only time it got my attention was when bits of it lept into my side to throttle my pots.  

In late summer, the Burgeoning Heap produced fruit.  Perhaps other eyes would've caught it sooner, but only then did I realise there was an apple tree inside the BH.

My son chases a much younger Mr BigNose thru 3 gardens ago.

Thus named, six things that defeated me.

This garden, given a blase design & left to flounder, needs things I can't offer it - time, energy, ruthlessness.  Let's hope a better gardener comes its way.

As for me, I blithely skip toward the next garden, shaking the dust of this misbegotten place from the hem of my waterproofs.  

As to you, scamper over to The Propagator where you'll find his more optimistic Six, plus many other blogger links in his comments section.

See you next garden!

The Night Before the Night Before

Spirit of the season.

At last, the penultimate Saturday of the year.

This past week, the chard lovers among you sent in all sorts of tempting recipes, broadening my ideas about what I can do with the stuff. To you, I'm most grateful.

Thinking chard thoughts made me realise my antipathy towards it was laced with guilt over not eating my greens.  Or purples.  Or reds, as the case may be.  So while I'll indeed be trying your yummy ideas, next year I'll allow myself to simply enjoy seeing colourful chard jostle the other inhabitants of the flowerbed.


Now, my Six on Saturday.  This week, I'm including some chores that refuse to be put to the side simply because there's eggnog in the house.  Gardening magic does not come to those who do no chores.

1.  First chore, replanting bulbs uprooted by young Brer Fox for the 2nd time.  There are 3 or 4 regular fox who visit our street every night.  I suspect Brer Fox is the young kit who jumps from wall to wall until he gets our resident Doodle's attention.  Once Doodle sounds the alarm, Brer Fox alternates between grooming himself & making delicious eye contact with her.  A most aggressive act in the canine community.

This bedlam, I can endure.  Digging up my bulbs, I cannot.  Hopefully the new defence system'll slow Brer Fox down.

Battling Brer Fox.

2.  Pruning of the rapacious elder has begun.  My chronic fatigue means this has to be done in many, many stages.  Although there's currently a pile of branches in the middle of the lawn, both the kerria & the lilac will now be able to grow vertically, even if I were to overdose on eggnogg this very night.  The acer (discussed here), not so much improved.  I'm fairly sure it'll stay the hunched & wizened hag of my garden.

The great elder cull begins.

3.  This orchid waited a long time for some attention.  A castaway from my son's undergraduate days, it's been a prolific bloomer until this new house.  That's one drawback of frequent moves - houseplants get very attached to their particular windowsills & pout when they lose them.  Here's hoping in a week or two m'lady'll be back to her gorgeous self.

Sulking orchid pair, mother & daughter.

4.  Then there's a previous chore.  Two hollyhocks'd somehow seeded themselves in the lawn.  Not at the edge, but about 18" inside the grass, brazenly taunting mower & dogs.  All summer, I told myself that once they reached their mature height in a year or two, they'd be too obvious to get themselves murdered.  In late November, I lost my nerve & transplanted them near their parents, fairly certain my cowardice would result in their death.

Newly transplanted hollyhocks.

They not only survived that abuse, but met their first frost with courage . . .

First frost!

. . . braved the snow that followed, & scoffed at this week's hard frost.

And a hard frost.

Enough of chores.  Let's end with a pair of lovelies.

5.  Yonks ago, I lived in a 17th century rectory, the type of house that sucks all the moisture from the ground.  Our landlady (who knew ALL the Latin plant names, which impressed this rough holler dweller to no end) filled the surrounding flowerbeds with drought resistant plants.

And thus, I met curry plant.  Helichrysum italicum, to the rest of you.  It propagates easily, so I took a bit of it with me on every subsequent move, but the curry in my last house died for some reason.  So this is my very own, not stolen/not relocated/not cut-&-dragged-from-house-to-house curry plant.

This beauty sits near the back door, giving off its gorgeously savoury smell.  I love it to bits.

Helichrysum italicum - curry plant.

6.  I've admitted my rapture over creeping thyme before.  It smells great, covers a multitude of sins, looks wonderful 3 seasons out of the year.  Here it is in its Cinderella finery after the frost.

Frosted creeping thyme.

Winter largesse.

Once again, we're at the end of my Six on Saturday.  Be sure to visit The Propagator for not only his Six, but links to other gardeners rounding up a special half dozen for you.

Enjoy your holiday celebrations, whatever they may be!

Totally Trees

Mizzy BunnyButt in the apple tree (summer photo).

I've kept a post featuring my trees on the back burner until there was nothing else going on in the garden.  This week alone there's been good weather, then rain, some frost, winds from Storm Caroline, all making their mark, not to mention another delivery of bulbs some fool ordered.

Time to take the bit in my teeth.  Trees it is.




1.  There's a notion in garden design (borrowed from Japanese gardening techniques, I believe) to use something beyond the garden boundaries as a focal point for the design inside the borders.  This birch would be that focal point, were I gifted in garden design.  In every season, at every time of day - & night, thanks to the street light - the eye goes to it first.  I'd love a garden large enough for a small copse of birch trees.

Birch from the abandoned garden next door.

2.  My acer's been featured before, when its leaves were at the apex of colour.  With most of them on the ground now, they've still got shades & tones.

The colour of winter via the acer.

What I didn't show before is its heroic determination to live.  Someone long ago planted it at the base of a brushed yew tree, but a self-seeded elder got between them.  Here you can see the acer growing horizontally to survive the squatter.  The yew is behind the both of them, out of this shot.

Old woman acer bending under the elder.

And a close up of the trunks, with the acer being the smooth, more grey colour & the elder a rough brown.  Ivy grows up the yew just visible at the back. 

The elder was beautiful in bloom & the acer is thriving so what to do, what to do . . .

Acer & elder grappling.

3.  Several years ago, a woman wrote an article about her addiction to growing monkey puzzles from seed.  I'd long wanted a monkey puzzle, so sent off for my own seeds.  For all my efforts, only 2 germinated, with only one of those surviving more than a few months.  Here is that sad little guy who, up 'til this summer, looked healthy.

Now it's brown on all its extremities.  I fear this year'll see the last of him.  Damn.  Anyone have suggestions?

Look at that sweet monkey puzzle face.

4.  I suspect our apple tree was planted about the same time as the yew.  Then or sometime later, the apple was given a wisteria for company.  The garden sat in neglect for possibly 10 years previous to our occupancy, which left the wisteria to go stark raving mad.  Shoots from the trunk made a latticework over the ground, going in one direction across the patio, into the garage.  In the other direction, it climbed the yew.

Yes, there's an apple tree in that wisteria.

It'll take a few years' pruning to pull it back to civility.  Despite it covering the apple's canopy, we had a great apple crop.  And it did look beautiful in bloom.

Apple & wisteria earlier this year.

5.  There's a trio of fruit trees planted near the acer, although 'planted' might really mean 'heeled in a single hole & left to their own devices'.  These are 2 apple & an ornamental cherry.  We got only 1 apple, but the cherry did okay producing fruit.

Trio of fruit trees.

If this is technique rather than neglect, I'd love to hear about it.

Close up the the trio trunks.

6.  In addition to those bulbs I don't remember ordering, this week brought a new 20th century Asian pear to replace one bought in the spring that didn't thrive.  The nursery were great on the phone, both with advice on ordering the first one, then when explaining why it only produced one sad little leaf.

This guy's been planted since the photo, so come on next year!

Doodle thinks this is her new stick.

So there you have it.  That's my Six.  But before you go . . .

Love them trees.

As always, please head over to the inciter of this meme, The Propagator where you'll find not only his Six, but links to many, many other Six on Saturday blogs.

See you next week!