Gardening

Note from a Small Garden

I must start by talking about the beautiful cerulean blue annual climber Ipomoea Heavenly Blue. This lovely plant is quite tender and becoming more fickle by the year. Sow and grow on in the greenhouse or indoors. I have found over the years that is safer to plant it out at the end of June. It used to grow up a fence, wall or up a wooden tripod and first flowers would be out by mid-August. But Jim and I have been comparing notes and found that this climber has recently not flowered until September. Last year his Ipomoea Morning Glory flowered first on 16th September and mine on 17th, but this year, despite good growth up the side of Jim’s front door, and growing half way up the thatch here at home, we were already in autumn, with Jim’s plant first flowering on 21st September (the equinox) and mine on 22nd. What is the cause of this? Climate change? It’s difficult to say, but we have had very hot prolonged spells this summer, and interestingly my Ipomoea didn’t prosper until the temperature fell. But as I write this on a beautiful cold morning, my plant is flowering bravely with its beautiful clear blue flowers, even though the temperature last night was 3°C! Which leads me on the topic of the garden in November. This was the month when my mother tackled her herbaceous borders, dividing up phloxes, golden rod, delphiniums and other perennial border plants. To cover the brown earth between the plants to retain soil moisture, mulching with leaf mould was a must. Compost was spread in February so that the nutrients wouldn’t leach out of the soil with heavy winter rain. I have to confess we don’t make separate leaf mould from compost in our garden, so I use compost when ‘putting the garden to bed’ for the winter and again if there’s enough and more importantly, in the spring! I like to make a mental note of how I would like the garden to be next spring and summer. But I should commit it to paper, particularly for the vegetable patch so that I can rotate bean, potato and brassica plants. This winter we will sadly be removing the pink spindle bush which is turning now to beautiful reds and purples. Unfortunately, it is too big and blocks out the view of the gnarled old apple Worcester Tydeman with its lovely red apples which ripen in August and

September. As the spindle makes suckers, I shall keep one of these side shoots and pot the others on to sell at next summer’s garden plant sales. Getting out catalogues and using the iPad by the fire on winter evenings is a joy. This year I have ordered all my bulbs in good time and earlier I treated myself to a proper bulb planter. It’s really important to plant bulbs deeply, often easier said than done! If you want to plant say ten bulbs in a pot, try layering the planting which should result in the bulbs flowering over a longer period. Think about ‘wilding up’ your garden; leave some of the lawn to grow into a meadow. There will be more next time about how to do this successfully. Think about your garden and climate change too and how to lessen your carbon footprint. Less mowing is a must! There is a move to start a group in the village, who will take forward ways to combat climate change, to restore biodiversity and reduce our carbon footprint. There can’t be a better time to pull all the existing local talent and knowledge together on this issue. See the letter in this month’s Meldreth Matters (pages 5-6) about how we can achieve this. Good gardening from Jim and me.

Julie Draper Juliedraper@dumbflea.co.uk