welsh hills again

Another pause in the 100 day project because of a quick trip to the West of Ireland to the Loop Head Peninsula.  Lovely, lively interesting place with a classic mixture of Irish weather: some blasting wind and rain, some showers and sunshine, some drizzle and some sun and warm hospitality.  And now I am back again knowing that I must engage with the 100 day project of lose it.  And I don't want to lose it, so here goes. Yesterday and today have been full of sunshine and warmth.  The light and warmth pull me outside, like iron filings to a magnet.  I had breakfast and lunch outside yesterday and lunch outside again today.  I have been trying to do something about the cutting garden. The cutting garden sits in the field by the orchard, two large squares made into a chequerboard of eight spaces for planting.  I always wanted a cutting garden.  I love flowers in the house but when I had a smaller garden I often found myself reluctant to cut ...

I have always wanted a cutting garden.  I love flowers in the house but when I had small gardens I could never bring myself to cut the things which were making an impact in the garden in order to bring them inside.  Here, with lots of room and a blank canvas, I decided to make a garden specifically for cutting.  It would be full of sweetpeas, cosmos, foliage plants and dahlias with daffodils and tulips in the spring. There were successes.  The dahlias were fabulous but only if I lifted them in the autumn and started them again in the greenhouse the following spring.  For the last two years I have tried to leave them in the ground but I am reluctantly concluding that on a high site in North Wales we do not have a long enough growing season for dahlias to get going without the boost they receive from being started off under glass.  Left in the ground they are only just beginning to flower strongly when they are cut down by the first frosts. Sweetpea...

If you have been reading this blog for a while you may remember that last year I reviewed a variety of plants from Plant me Now , an online plant nursery.  The plants were always well grown and everything I had from them last year  has survived really well so I was very pleased to be asked to review some  perennials  for them this spring. I am on a bit of a mission to increase the number of perennials in my cutting garden.  I have so far relied heavily on annuals and grown most of them from seed.  This is fine when you have the time and attention to devote to seed raising but this year is not the year for that.  I can pretty much guarantee that if I disappear down to Devon  every couple of weeks for a few days things will die and I can do without that.  The garden has to sustain me this year and not be too hard work.  It has to be somewhere that restores and recharges my batteries (is that possible?  not looking to...

Does everyone love the idea of a cutting garden in the way that I do?  I love flowers in the house but in the main flower growing bit of the garden, known here as the side garden,  I am trying to create a particular feeling with the planting.  Here I do not want to take the peonies, the poppies, the tulips or the alliums which are making the garden sing and leave it denuded.  So for five years I have been trying to create a cutting garden in a big bed beyond the new orchard. It has been hard going.  The first couple of years were a total disappointment. Annual seed which I sowed failed to germinate.  Some things worked, notably cosmos, but there were huge gaps when the garden was empty and dull, not to say full of weed. Here is cosmos purity in 2009 looking beautiful. Here is the cutting garden itself in 2010 looking rather grumpy and dull. I had at least by that stage discovered the importance of sweet peas, even if I did not have the varieti...

Is the year slipping away from me?  I took the photos for last month's end of month view post but somehow they never made it to the blog so here is a two for the price of one blog because the record is so interesting and useful.  It makes you stop and look and think. Here is the side garden at the end of June: The oriental poppies are still in flower and the blue hardy geraniums and simple orange day lillies. By the end of July the hardy geraniums and poppies have been cut back hard although the day lillies are still going strong.  The gazebo is up for a party with some friends who live in the US and are over here for the Olympics.  We had a great time with them and other friends who came up to spend time with them.  This makes the garden look quite formal which is misleading!  It is not. By the end of July the stars of the side garden are Crocosmia Lucifer and a persicaria given to me by a friend.  The fennel too is soaring and the rudbe...