The Garden at the end of March

Well March was a month. Covid reigned supreme here and let me tell you that whilst for Andy, who go anti virals and salted through it really, for me it was no joke and I am only just beginning to feel anywhere near close to normal.

But with that we had some beautiful weather and I spent three days in London for the Garden Press Event and where I visited an old favourite, The Chelsea Physic Garden. It’s a garden I love but there is also a lot to say about it so hold tight and that will come separately.

The woodland garden at the Chelsea Physic Garden

In reality it doesn’t feel like much was achieved in our garden at home but of course that’s actually far from the truth, although we likely haven’t achieved as much as we hoped by now. I knew in my soul that there would be a cold snap so I’m actually quite pleased I didn’t get carried away, but I have planted out the bare root shrubs we bought from Ashridge Trees, which I have to say were the best quality.

So we now have a Rosa rugosa hedge planted between the main part of the garden and the veg garden, as well as gooseberries and blackcurrants in the perennial food bed, a couple of new Elders and a Corylus which we hope will be productive here as thus far we have seen no squirrels. There’s also a small crab apple and a spindle still waiting in pots to go into their forever homes, and I finally planted out the Roe Dame Judy Dench we bought last summer in the local garden centre sale.

The other thing that is giving me joy is the pot garden on the patio which is filled with beautiful tulips, daffs and wallflowers, alongside a lot of what I think are Camassia but time will tell. The great folk at Dalefoot compost gifted me the compost for the pots and you can really see the health from the compost being passed to the plants-they’re all looking incredible and it’s so good to sit out there with a cuppa, soaking in the colours.

Of course work is also ramping up and I will share more of the Edible Bristol stuff as the season progresses. Excitingly we have a trainee grower beginning this week, which we hope will be an annual position that supports someone interested in land work to get a foot on the ladder.

Other than that there’s not much to tell other , and if you follow me on social media you will know this, we have our daughter’s dog living with us for a while, and so suddenly we have solved the cat poo problem, which is nice….

See you next month for more!

Bear…..

A November Rose

This morning I posted to Instagram the photo I have shared below. The immediate thought of course is what joy to have roses in bloom in November but then we have to ask ourselves, but is it?

And of course our immediate answer is yes, but then I began to think about the gardens in which I grew up. My formative gardens if you like, generally further north than Bristol of course, but by November 1st those gardens were places of decay, where the composting and mulching had begun, and where the onions and garlic were sitting waiting for the shortest day to be planted, and where the autumn sown broad beans were beginning to pop their heads up. The summer was long gone, the tulips were about to go in and the other autumn planting bulbs were already encased underneath the soil, cleared for them and waiting for spring.

Bu now the gardens were preparing for Guys Falkes, for bonfires and frosty mornings, which generally had begun. Our winter clothes were out and to go into the garden you needed to be wrapped up warm.

And yet at the weekend I was gardening in a tee shirt. In Bristol in the last 5 years we have seen no pre Christmas frosts and even in the new year they tend to be fairly uncommon. There are gardens we have never seen with any frost at all, where goji berries and lemongrass and flourish all year and where, today, the dahlias are still in full bloom.

Roses die back in September?October don’t they? Fade into a beautiful decay and lose their leaves to become shadow of their former and future glory. Whilst they sleep they gather the strength they need for the year ahead, their roots quietly communing with the mycelium underground, taking in the nourishment they need, stretching themselves into places where water is easily accessible, thickening their cells so that they can cope with the winter to come. Effectively putting on their winter wardrobe.

So what happens if they aren’t allowed to do this? If they think we are in some never ending summer where only the light changes but where they feel safe to flourish? What happens if they don’t put on that winter wardrobe and instead are caught out by a sharp, cold snap? Of course they’ll cope with one, but what if the weather continues to go from summer to winter and back again? How much confusion can one plant take before it begins to get really confused and is overwhelmed by the seasons, unsure of how to behave and when?

In the UK we may not have truly begun to see the ravages of climate breakdown but this week I have seen farmers fields in Devon overwhelmed by rain and water bubbling through areas next to flooding. We have seen torrential rainfall, dangerous flooding and again people being flooded out of their homes. But still we hear that climate chaos isn’t really affecting us, but here I implore you. Think back to the childhood gardens we all recall, of the season shift we all felt after the autumn half term, and consider how that has changed, Because roses blooming on the 1st of November are just one beautiful sign that climate change is not only affecting us, but also everything we share our earth with…….

And on a practical note, this rose has been given a strong talking to about COP26 and seasonality, and been given a lunch of comfrey leaves so the potash can support the cells to strengthen for that winter, which inevitably will come.