End of month view gets going for 2011

I really enjoyed getting involved in the end of month view posts hosted by Helen at patient gardener last year so I have decided to do it again with the odd addition here and there to reflect new projects or attempts to tackle past failures.  It was interesting to see how things changed and encouraging looking back on the photographic diary of the year to find that areas which look like a war zone in late winter do fill up and out and create things of beauty as the year goes on.

Here is the side garden.  The angle I usually use for this does not let me show you the snowdrops just coming into flower at the bottom of the side wall.  The path which goes out through the gate to the workshop and the field gets wet and muddy in the winter.  One day we will have the money and the time to put down a proper path.  This is a spring and summer garden. In summer the sun gets high enough to make the seat whose corner you can just see into a sunny and sheltered spot to sit in the morning with a cup of tea.  For winter I have planted sweet box, sarcococca humilis, at the corner of the bed nearest to you in the picture.  The plants are quite small but are covered at this time of year in tiny white flowers which smelt exceptionally sweet.  Behind them are five hellebore orientalis.  They are full of fat buds and this morning I have been cutting off last year's leaves so that you can see the flowers when they open.  I love hellebores and, when so many things I love are not happy up here, hellebores love me right back.  I have bought some more from Sarah Raven which will go down by the native trees in the field.

Here is the new little orchard looking up towards the cutting garden.  The trees, with the exception of the mulberries which are so slowgrowing you can hardly see, are beginning to look like proper trees now after three years in the ground planted as maiden whips.  The native daffodils are just starting to poke their snouts up around the trees.  Last year I began the slow process of introducing native wildflowers to this area.  There are ox eye daisies, fox and cubs, teasels and ravenswing cow parsley in here but far too few of all of them!  I have found a local nursery, Saithffynnon meaning Seven Wells, which specialises in plants for butterflies and bees and is only a few miles from here.  I am hoping to buy more seed or even treat myself to some plugplants from them in the hope that local plants will thrive.  I am only just beginning to get my head round the number of plants which you need for naturalising, even though I am not after instant results and am quite happy for things to take their time.  The thirty of so ox eye daisies which I grew from seed and planted out last summer in this meadow barely made a splash of white.  Think of a fairly big number and multiply it by ten seems to be the rule of thumb.  Even then you are hardly drowning in the stuff.  Last year I let the grass grow tall over the summer and Ian scythed it down in September.  This year I shall do the same but with one mown path so that you can walk right through the middle of the meadow.  The grass will be as high as my soon to be five year old grandson's head.

Here is a revamped bed in the cutting garden.  The cutting garden is a rather grand name for a long thin bed, about the length of an allotment but a little narrower.  The mesh you can see is one of three sets of supports for sweet peas, one at each end and one dividing it in the middle.  So far each year the sweet peas have been fabulous and the rest of the cutting garden a bit disappointing.  I have grown the plants in stripes, in keeping with the allotment feel, but I have never been pleased with the effect.  This year I shall grow in blocks   between the baby box hedging in this half.  Cosmos grows well for me every year but last year's first attempt at zinnias was disappointing.  This year I am going to try Centaurea cyanus, Black Ball, a deep almost black version of the cornflower, with Cosmos sulphereus Bright Lights, a vivid orange cosmos.  At the other end I have lavender in rows and globe artichokes and need some ideas for what to plant between the artichokes and the middle row of sweetpeas.  There are tulips in there already in two of the squares.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could remember what they are?  The cutting garden is one of my projects for this year.  It needs more thought and time in its planting to be a beautiful thing in itself rather than a repository for half grown things which won't quite fit anywhere else.

This is another new bit to work on this year: the native tree walk in my head.  At the far end is a whitebeam, then a rowan, a silver birch and at this end a wild cherry.  Between the trees are hollies and dogwoods and beneath them some snowdrops and scillas.  Here I shall also put the new hellebores and perhaps over time try to increase the numbers of everything.  I want something to lure you down to the bottom of the field on a bright late winter or early spring day.  I am almost tempted to put more daffodils down here but I think I shall resist, leaving the daffodils to dance round the trees in the orchard and to crowd behind the swing.  There is enough space here to let each area have its different feel and I think the yellow of daffodils might overwhelm the woodland feel.

The witch hazel is out, it spidery flowers catching me unawares again.  It hides in the corner of the field, amongst hazels put in for coppicing and filberts for nuts.  It is probably not the best place to see it and it's easy to miss its flowering period if it is cold and wet and the days are not for wandering  about in.  Too big to move though, so it will have to stay there.  I love it.  I wonder if I love it so much I can justify another one?

Here is the sunny bank, the little quince tree bare and leafless and the bank all tidy and weeded ready for spring.  This is a late summer place with pinks and penstemon and sedums.  I have cuttings of a tender pink salvia which I bought last year at Wollerton Old Hall.  It doesn't look as if the parent plant has survived the cold but the cuttings are sitting up on a bedroom windowsill so I must remember to care for them until they can take their place besides the jostling valerian.

Here is the kitchen garden.  In the summer the growth of trees and hedges and the overflowing of the raised beds with herbs and salads disguises the fact that the whole garden is on a slope.  At this time of year everything looks as if it is sliding away down the valley.  You can hardly tell from this picture that there is more yew planted at the far end to extend the big yew hedge which protects the henhouse.  When it is big enough I shall cut it so that it produces a horizontal, spirit level straight against the fall of the valley and the rise of the hills beyond.  I think it will make me smile but if it doesn't work it can always be left to do what it likes.

So there we are.  Too many projects, too much rough ground, all still a work in progress and fledgling as a wet bird.  You can tell I am tired because I am not yet champing at the bit to get seeds sown although I did feel a stirring of excitement when I went walking with my secateurs and my camera.  And look, it's February now.  Surely Spring cannot be far behind?